Professor in Sustainable Energy, UCC 🇮🇪
I write a monthly column for the Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/tags/hannah-daly/
Born 351ppm, daughters born 408 & 410, now >420ppm 🚨 ‼️
Former @IEA and @UCL
Hannah Daly
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It is really heartening to see this kind of integrity. Carbon accounting should absolutely be not agreed by private, industry-led groups.
Today, I'll brief the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence on a new working paper which quantifies the potential energy and emissions from data centres into the future under the new Large Energy User Connection Policy, should 5.8 GW of new capacity (estimated through a market survey) emerge.
I have resigned from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Independent Standards Board.
The Protocol is openly violating its own rules and has effectively delegated forest carbon accounting standards to a secret, industry-led working group.
ghgpolicy.org/s/2026-06-08...
A brand new piece for Crikey: digging into what happens now for Australia's data centre debate
Anthropic, planning 20GW, would have to build 1.7x the amount of all renewable energy ever built in Australia to date, to meet the 100% mandate.
www.crikey.com.au/2026/06/10/m...
Video
This is my 50th column for the Irish Times! Read my back catalogue here (most of it): hannahdaly.ie/tags/#column
Hannah Daly
Danny Cullenward
Ketan Joshi
Hannah Daly
Data centre electricity demand could exceed power usage of entire country
I have resigned from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Independent Standards Board.
The Protocol is openly violating its own rules and has effectively delegated forest carbon accounting standards to a secret, industry-led working group.
ghgpolicy.org/s/2026-06-08...
It quantifies multiple conflicts between this trend and climate and energy security targets. In particular, it shows that just because data centres will support new renewables under the policy, it does not ensure compatibility with climate and energy security targets.
zenodo.org/records/2058...
www.irishtimes.com
Deputy Malcolm Byrne is that sort of person who will say ‘oh you oppose data centre expansion but you have an IPHONE???’ and thinks it’s clever
cc @hannahdaly.ie
Worth reading @hannahdaly.ie's full research here - it contains some really stunning numbers.
The most important point is the 80% renewable mandate delayed by six years: meaning six years of massive gas use and emissions, breaching carbon budgets and spiking bills
zenodo.org/records/2058...
Hannah Daly
Reflections on the Joint Committee on AI and my new working paper that shows how data centres could consume 55% of Ireland's electricity by 2040 and cause gas demand to rise.
hannahdaly.ie/2026-06-11-J...
New column: Now is the ideal time to make fossil fuel phase-out the organising principle of Ireland's energy and economic strategy.
My piece in today's @irishtimes.com: www.irishtimes.com/environment/...
