TL;DR

More than 100 campaign groups across 15 European countries are holding protests against data centres on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 November, under the banner “Stop Dirty Data Centres”. They want a moratorium on large projects. One event is near Brick Lane in east London, where locals already oppose a planned data centre. The Guardian reported the plans on 5 November.

What is planned

In Dublin campaigners will march; in Warsaw they will gather at parliament; in Denmark they target a Microsoft site; and in Amsterdam a teach-in takes place close to a proposed facility. Organisers expect crowds ranging from a handful of people to several hundred, with London and Dublin among the larger gatherings. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the London-based campaign group Foxglove are among the backers.

Campaign coordinator Owen Espley tied the protests to the US midterm elections, saying the results reflect concerns about large data centres shared by communities on both sides of the Atlantic. The Guardian notes that data centre opponents were among the big winners for the Democrats.

The UK numbers

The environmental case is central. The Guardian cites research by Germany’s Öko-Institut projecting that carbon emissions from AI data centres will be six times their 2023 level by 2030. For the UK, it reports that AI data centre energy use could produce up to 123m tonnes of CO2 over ten years, roughly the output of 2.7 million people.

The grid figure is the starker one. 315 data centres are waiting to connect to the UK grid, representing 73GW of demand. The whole country’s peak demand is 45GW. The industry’s counter-argument is that data centres create construction and operating jobs and support growth through AI.

Why it matters

The UK data centre disputes we have covered have mostly been local, including opposition at Brick Lane and in Charlton. In our view, a coordinated European weekend of action marks a shift from site-by-site objections towards a common campaign, and gives local groups a shared set of arguments. For developers, the 73GW queue against a 45GW peak may matter as much as the protests.

Looking Forward

The size of the London and Dublin turnouts will show how much public support the campaign can muster. Developers and councils facing applications should expect objections to cite carbon and grid capacity together, not just local amenity.