Activists in 15 European Countries Plan Two Days of Protests Against Data Centres

More than 100 groups have joined the Stop Dirty Data Centres actions, according to the organisers, who say the projects carry environmental and social costs that "we can no longer afford". Backers include Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Foxglove, a London-based group that campaigns for what it calls "a fairer tech future".

The protests follow US midterm elections in which candidates opposed to data centres were among the Democrats' strongest performers, and the campaign is explicitly drawing on that result. For operators and investors planning European capacity, the events show local opposition becoming organised across borders rather than fought site by site.

"Communities and civil society from across Europe are rising up to stop dirty data centres where they live and demand their politicians impose moratoria on large-scale data centre developments," said Owen Espley, the campaign's coordinator. "The US mid-term results reflect the concerns communities both sides of the Atlantic share about the harms of large-scale data centres."

Planned actions include a protest outside the Polish parliament in Warsaw, a march in Dublin, a demonstration at a Microsoft data centre in Denmark, a teach-in near a planned site in Amsterdam, and an event in the Brick Lane area of east London, where a proposed development has met local resistance. Organisers expect turnout to range from a handful of people at some events to several hundred at the larger gatherings in London and Dublin.

The campaign's case rests largely on energy and emissions. Research by Germany's Öko-Institut projects that carbon dioxide emissions from AI data centres will be six times their 2023 level by 2030. In the UK, energy use by AI data centres could produce up to 123 million tonnes of CO2 over the next decade, roughly what 2.7 million people generate, according to figures cited in coverage of the campaign. Campaigners also point to the effects of chatbots on mental health, the risk of AI displacing jobs and what they describe as the prioritisation of data centres over housing.

The technology industry argues that data centres create jobs during construction and operation and support growth by enabling the development and use of AI.

The scale of planned demand explains why grid capacity has become central to the dispute. About 250 data centre projects worldwide with power demand above 100 megawatts, each roughly equivalent to 300,000 homes, were announced between 2021 and 2024, most of them in North America. In the UK, 315 data centres are waiting to connect to the power grid, representing 73 gigawatts of demand against national peak demand of 45GW.

The European protests coincide with pressure on data centre planning elsewhere. In Australia, a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry this week found gaps in approval processes but dropped a call for a moratorium, while in the US, voters in several states backed curbs on data centre construction.

The actions are scheduled for Friday, November 6, and Saturday, November 7.