CLIMATE campaigners have warned the government against backing “Trump-supporting tech billionaires” as they challenge its approval of a data centre in Britain which “pollutes on the scale of an international airport.”

Lawyers for Global Action Plan and Foxglove will argue on Thursday against the Woodlands Park hyper-scale data centre in Buckinghamshire, in what they say is the first case of its kind.

They claim the centre, built across 775,000sq ft (72,000 sq m), would also put strain on the local energy supply and would drive up energy prices.

Foxglove advocacy director Donald Campbell told the Morning Star that “new, hyper-scale data centres which US tech giants want to build across the UK” have a “huge cost in terms of climate emissions.”

He said: “Each of these new facilities will use vast quantities of electricity, resulting in climate emissions on the scale of an international airport.

“It is deeply worrying that the UK government is backing the ambitions of Trump-supporting tech billionaires, without a thought for their enormous impact on the environment.”

Foxglove and Global Action Plan, along with Opportunity Green, recently submitted written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee saying data centres must be included in the government’s carbon budget .

The groups’ submitted evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee claims Britain has the third highest number of data centres in the world with about 100 more on the way,

Despite high use of energy for these, the government has encouraged more data centres to be built, campaigners said, without accounting to for their impact on the environment. 

Mr Campbell said: “If the UK’s carbon budgets are to be realistic, they must take into account the impact of this major, growing source of emissions.”

Global Action Plan’s head of policy and campaigns Oliver Hayes spoke to the Star ahead of Thursday’s High Court hearing, which will determine whether the campaign groups’ challenge can go to trial.

He said: “Any proposed data centre like this one at Woodlands must confront that reality and demonstrate how it will help, not hinder, rapid decarbonisation. If it can’t, it should be rejected.

“Big Tech companies have abandoned their climate commitments for the simple reason that data centres generate vast electricity demand and therefore emissions.”

He added: “Assessing emissions from light bulbs and printers in a data centre’s office building, but not its giant warehouses of energy-intensive AI servers, is absurd.

“Any planning regime that doesn’t recognise this is clearly failing to do its job.”