The Scottish Government faces urgent calls to address "major shortcomings" in its data centre policy, as Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS) alleges a critical failure to account for the emissions of hyperscale AI facilities in assessments of "green data centres" and their contribution to climate targets.
Kat Jones, director of APRS, branded the situation "pretty shocking". The government’s NPF4 national planning framework states that "green data centres" will have an "overall negligible impact" on Scotland’s emissions reduction goals.
