The EPA has reportedly drafted a plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

That's according to documents recently obtained by the New York Times.

The power industry is one of the top sources of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions,

which scientists have said for decades helped drive climate change.

Now, with the rise of AI technology, demand on power plants has increased which scientists have said for decades helped drive climate change.

Now, with the rise of AI technology, demand on power plants is increasing, in large part to AI's reliance on data centers.

Ali Rogan spoke with Ken Zabryan, climate reporter for the Financial Times.

Thanks for joining us.

How would you describe the environmental impact of these data centers that are at the heart of AI?

Their environmental impact is huge and it's growing.

AI data centers are massively contributing to the continued rise in power demand,

which itself contributes to the continued rise in global emissions.

And most importantly, it's growing faster than grid capacities.

And even more importantly, it's growing faster than renewable energy growth,

which means that even as data center energy use grows, clean energy from wind, solar, nuclear perhaps, is lagging behind.

And what have you learned about the public health implications of the capacity that's needed

to power these AI systems?

Some of the public health implications are very local, but really the effects are more global than local.

So pushing up demand for fossil fuels means more CO2 is emitted, which helps global temperatures

creep up, which can have local effects through extreme weather events, for example.

What sort of regulatory environment is there for these facilities? For the moment,

there's very little regulatory scrutiny of data centre energy use. And one of the only governments

...