Australia’s GDP figures are meaningless when the boom in datacentres means destroying jobs and the climate | Greg Jericho

In the March quarter Australia’s economy grew 0.3%. But the real issue is what drove that growth Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The March GDP figures, not for the first time, showed that the focus on economic growth seems rather foolish when you place it within the context of the climate crisis. While the economy did grow in the first three months of this year, the big driver was investment in datacentres, which a new report on Wednesday revealed is greatly increasing the risk to the climate and Australia’s environment. You probably could do worse than say that the March GDP figures suggest Australia’s economic growth will “push up power prices, prolong the use of polluting coal power stations, increase gas generation, and derail the progress we are making towards our climate goals”. That quote, however, was not about the GDP but by the Climate Council talking about the boom in datacentres. But, to be honest, it almost comes to the same thing. In the March quarter Australia’s economy grew 0.3% – not a great result, but given the annual growth of 2.5% still fairly solid: If the graph do