{"id":84002,"date":"2025-08-22T02:18:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T02:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/84002\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T02:18:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T02:18:18","slug":"google-president-praised-maga-speech-slamming-climate-extremist-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/84002\/","title":{"rendered":"Google President Praised MAGA Speech Slamming \u2018Climate Extremist Agenda\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is being co-published with The Lever, an investigative newsroom. Click here<\/a> to get The Lever\u2019s free newsletter.<\/p>\n

At a recent artificial intelligence conference in Washington, D.C., Google\u2019s president cheered on Trump\u2019s interior secretary after he\u00a0slammed Silicon Valley\u2019s support of the so-called \u201cclimate extremist agenda\u201d and pushed to expand the use of \u201cincredibly clean\u201d coal plants and other fossil fuels to power data centers, according to a previously unreported recording.<\/p>\n

Following the speech\u00a0by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Google and Alphabet, told conference attendees that \u201cI thought Secretary Burgum\u2019s comments were fantastic\u2026 [B]ecause I think it is very clear that to realize the potential of AI, you have to have the power to deliver it. And we have underinvested in this country, and to stay ahead, we need to actually address it head-on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Porat was speaking on a panel about how AI is \u201crewriting America\u2019s future,\u201d alongside Big Tech leaders including venture capitalist Delian Asparouhov and Kevin Weil, the chief product officer for OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. During the panel, Porat also discussed a Google white paper<\/a> advocating for U.S. investments in natural gas and nuclear to power the industry\u2019s energy-hungry data centers.<\/p>\n

Porat\u2019s remarks, captured in an April video of the influential 2025 Hill & Valley Forum<\/a>, suggest Big Tech now is prioritizing fossil fuels for data centers<\/a> over its climate commitments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Google and other major tech companies as recently as a few years ago led the corporate world in acknowledging the seriousness of the climate emergency and proposing concrete actions to limit Silicon Valley\u2019s carbon emissions. Porat\u2019s company has for years positioned itself as a climate leader in the tech industry.\u00a0Among its many promises?\u00a0An ambitious 2020 pledge<\/a> to power all its operations with carbon-free energy by 2030.<\/p>\n

Yet Porat\u2019s comments at the Hill & Valley Forum, and her subsequent praise<\/a> in July for the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cenergy abundance\u201d agenda\u00a0\u2014\u00a0which supports oil, gas, and coal while severely penalizing renewables<\/a> such as wind and solar\u00a0\u2014\u00a0signal that,\u00a0at a time when climate action is under serious threat from Republicans, the country\u2019s largest tech companies are wavering in their support for the cheapest, cleanest, and lowest-carbon energy sources.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s reflected in Google\u2019s carbon emissions, which soared nearly<\/a> 50 percent between 2019 and 2024, according to a company environmental report<\/a>. An independent study from the NewClimate Institute<\/a>,<\/a> a German nonprofit, warned in August of a \u201ccrisis\u201d for the tech giant\u2019s ability to meet its climate targets, stating that \u201cdata centre expansion and higher artificial intelligence (AI) usage have rapidly increased Google\u2019s electricity demand and absolute [greenhouse gas]\u00a0emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google didn\u2019t respond to a media request about Porat\u2019s comments.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate Extremist Agenda\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 2021, the Hill & Valley Forum is an organization that brings together prominent tech executives and venture capitalists with federal policymakers. This year\u2019s event, which took place in late April, featured the likes<\/a> of Palantir CEO Alex Carp and billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, alongside politicians including Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The opening remarks were delivered by Burgum, a former North Dakota governor with close ties to the fossil fuel industry. As interior secretary, Burgum oversees management and conservation of federal land. Previous reporting showed that in 2024, months prior to being nominated by Trump for the position, Burgum hosted a private dinner<\/a> for oil, gas, and coal executives.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Burgum, a Republican, used his speech to criticize Silicon Valley for having supported \u201cthe climate extremist agenda,\u201d which he defined as the idea that \u201ca degree of temperature change in the year 2100 is the thing that we should drive every policy in America.\u201d Burgum added: \u201cI\u2019ve always been a little offended by that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echoing common climate-denier talking points<\/a> about the inability of climate models to predict future temperature rise, Burgum questioned \u201chow a group could take a spreadsheet and extrapolate [climate] data for 90 years, 80 years, now 75 years and say \u2018this is absolutely what\u2019s going to happen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He then positioned coal as an energy source that can power Big Tech\u2019s data centers. \u201cAny coal plant running in America today is incredibly clean,\u201d he claimed without evidence. <\/p>\n

U.S. power plant pollution is at its highest levels in three years<\/a> due to a recent surge in generation from coal.<\/p>\n

Burgum concluded by stating that accelerating production of American oil, gas, coal, and potentially some nuclear would be key to realizing Silicon Valley\u2019s AI agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the Trump plan, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Google Leader\u00a0On Burgum\u2019s Vision for AI:\u00a0\u201cFantastic\u201d<\/p>\n

Porat, the Google president, expressed no qualms with Burgum\u2019s speech when she was asked about it on a panel later that day, instead stating that his \u201ccomments were fantastic.\u201d Porat then elaborated that Google and the Trump administration were in agreement about needing to scale up nuclear production and modernize the electrical grid.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, Google CEO Sundar Pichai\u00a0warned that<\/a> \u201cwe have until 2030 to chart a sustainable cause for our planet or face the worst consequences of climate change.\u201d He outlined a plan to power its data centers by doing \u201cthings like pairing wind and solar power sources together, and increasing our use of battery storage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts<\/p>\n

But at the Hill & Valley Forum, Porat outlined an energy agenda much more favorable to fossil fuels. During the panel, she touted a recent Google white paper<\/a> that didn\u2019t once mention wind or solar, even though they generally remain the cheapest form<\/a> of power generation worldwide.\u00a0The document instead called for federal investment in \u201caffordable, reliable, and secure energy technologies, including geothermal, advanced nuclear, and natural gas generation with carbon capture (among other sources).\u201d<\/p>\n

Others at the conference voiced direct skepticism of renewable energy, including David Friedberg, co-host of the popular pro-Trump tech podcast All-In. \u201cTo scale up energy, it\u2019s not about solar, it\u2019s not about wind, those might have been nice from a narrative perspective, but scalable energy production requires these next-gen systems and we have to unlock that,\u201d he claimed during a panel about reindustrializing America.<\/p>\n

In reality, last year,\u00a0nearly 93 percent<\/a> of new power additions worldwide came from renewable sources.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s AI Action Plan<\/p>\n

When the Trump administration unveiled its AI Action Plan in Washington, D.C., in late July, the event was presented in the form of a live podcast<\/a> hosted by Friedberg and his other All-In co-hosts, as well as the founders of Hill & Valley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to build and maintain vast AI infrastructure and the energy to power it,\u201d the plan reads<\/a>. \u201cTo do that, we will continue to reject radical climate dogma and bureaucratic red tape, as the Administration has done since Inauguration Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan claims that it will ensure free speech in AI systems by eliminating \u201creferences to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.\u201d\u00a0It further constricts federal spending to developers of the type of AI models, such as ChatGPT or Elon Musk\u2019s Grok<\/a>, \u201cwho ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some climate groups were quick to condemn the proposal. \u201cThis U.S. AI Action Plan doesn\u2019t just open the door for Big Tech and Big Oil to team up, it unhinges and removes any and all doors,\u201d KD Chavez, executive director of the national advocacy group Climate Justice Alliance, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But if Google has any concerns about the anti-climate AI policies being pursued by the White House, the company isn\u2019t showing it. At a mid-July AI event in Pennsylvania, Porat heaped more praise<\/a> on the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. President, thank you for your leadership and for your clear and urgent direction that our nation invest in AI infrastructure, technology and the energy to unlock its benefits so that America can continue to lead,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is being co-published with The Lever, an investigative newsroom. Click here to get The Lever\u2019s free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-84002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}