40 mayors worldwide endorse a pact to shape data center development

Forty mayors from around the world have signed onto a pact announced Tuesday to try to shape how urban data centers are built and operated.

It's their vision for how urban data center development can be done sustainably — and not at the expense of their cities' natural resources, energy prices or climate targets. C40 Cities, an alliance of nearly 100 cities seeking to impact climate change, launched it during London Climate Action Week.

Many new data centers are coming to rural areas for cheap land. Experts at C40 say metropolitan areas are under tremendous pressure too, with about 1,700 data centers located in their network of cities so far. Development of data centers is expected to grow by over 40% in 50 of those cities.

C40 got involved because the mayors of Phoenix and Melbourne, Australia, came together over worries about data centers using a lot of their cities' electricity and water, and competing with housing developers for available land.

“We found out that the challenges in every region around the world were very similar,” said Cassie Sutherland, a managing director at C40. “Our approach was to say OK, how do we now use a global mayoral voice to come together with the conditions under which they will accept data centers.”

Data centers are built in cities to be close to firms that want systems powered by artificial intelligence to respond instantaneously. Major companies locate data centers in cities to be near their business operations. And data centers tend to be built in clusters, forming ecosystems in metropolitan areas that might outweigh factors like land costs. It’s just more recently that data centers have moved out into rural areas, said Andrew Batson, global head of data center research at JLL.

Political and local opposition has been growing because of fears about blackouts, rising electricity bills and the centers' voracious water needs. Some states are suspending tax breaks or considering moratoriums on data center construction.

About half of participating mayors are from the U.S. That includes Seattle and the California cities of Palo Alto and Riverside. In the Southwest, Phoenix and Albuquerque, New Mexico, joined. On the East Coast, Beverly, Massachusetts, signed, as did Lincoln, Nebraska; Chicago and Cleveland in the Midwest and Miami in the South.

European cities in Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and Norway joined, as did Montreal in Canada. The pact includes African cities in Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Kenya, as well as Asia-Pacific cities in India and Australia, and Lebanon in the Middle East.

Sutherland said their vision needs to be translated into action, with each city using it as a framework for their own regulations or guidelines. Mayors are limited in what they can do unilaterally, so they'll need buy-in from other government officials, utilities and the private sector.

The pact lists several standards for data center developments. Urban data centers should be built on abandoned or underutilized land in an area that minimizes negative impacts on noise, heat and air pollution. Developments should be fueled by renewable energy and battery storage, and data centers should reduce water use and emissions, as well as capture waste heat.

And, the mayors want data centers that create jobs, buy local goods and services, pay for their own infrastructure upgrades and listen to community feedback.

The Phoenix metropolitan area has pending permit requests that would double the electricity demand if all of these data centers were built. Developers are drawn there for its reliable power and predictable weather.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said she's concerned that investments in data centers right now are worsening climate change and not meeting the needs of communities. Mayors are forming a unified front to help improve data centers everywhere — that will keep developers from simply looking for communities unable to advocate for their own benefits, she added.

“We understand the importance of this innovation, it’s creating great jobs in our community,” Gallego said. “We just want to make sure that we get it right for our local residents and for the health of our planet.”

As of Tuesday, none of Southeast Asia's cities endorsed the pact. Several said they couldn't because of national policies or other complications, but the conversations are ongoing, C40 said.

The region accounts for a quarter of global energy demand growth, partially driven by more than 2,000 data centers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, according to the think tank Ember.

The annual energy demand from these data centers will more than double in the next five years, the International Energy Agency said. This is most evident in Malaysia, which has drawn investments and interest from tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Nvidia.

If Melbourne follows through on all its plans, data centers will annually consume up to 20 billion liters (5.3 billion gallons) worth of water, or about 4% of the drinking water supply, according to the city’s Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece.

The water supply is already strained by the growing population, longer dry periods and more extreme heat driven by climate change.

Melbourne played a key role in the pact. Reece said stricter environmental regulations there likely won't threaten future plans. Ultimately, he said, data centers are going to go where there's enough power and land, and where they're close to the markets and companies using artificial intelligence.

“We don’t want to see a race to the bottom between cities where governments, desperate for investment, are chasing data centers on any terms possible,” he said. “We want to see a better framework in place so that the investment rush in data centers can be a win-win — a win for investors and also a win for local communities.”

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FILE - Workers walk outside a data center building under construction in Johor Bahru town at Johor state, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)

FILE - A worker prepares a plot of land for an AI data center, with a retired power plant being refurbished to provide electricity for the facility in the distance, March 24, 2026, in Independence, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

FILE - A data centre is visible in Frankfurt, Germany, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

FILE - Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego listens during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Capitol Hill, July 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

FILE - Amazon Web Services data center is visible on Aug. 22, 2024, in Boardman, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)

LONDON (AP) — The estranged husband of Scotland's former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was sentenced Tuesday to five years and three months in prison for embezzling more than 400,000 pounds ($540,000) from the Scottish National Party to fund a luxury lifestyle when he was its chief executive.

Peter Murrell, 61, admitted using party funds to buy a high-priced motorhome, a Jaguar electric SUV, luxury goods such as Bremont watches and household items that included two toilet seats. He was given credit for time served.

“All told, this was a calculated crime of dishonesty,’’ Judge James Young said at the High Court in Edinburgh. “And let me make it clear to you, one factor in the sentence which I imposed today will be to act as a deterrent to any senior officials in other large organizations who might be tempted to abuse their position in the way that you did.''

Sturgeon, who led Scotland's semiautonomous government for more than eight years, has distanced herself from Murrell’s crimes and says she was not aware of his crimes.

Murrell’s sentencing caps a tumultuous period for Scotland’s dominant party, which supports independence from the United Kingdom, and the former power couple once at its helm.

Young said he couldn’t identify anything in Murrell's background, working life or personal circumstances that might explain his crimes or mitigate his sentence. But he acknowledged that public coverage of Murrell's downfall would make future employment difficult if not impossible.

“In truth, it is very difficult to get a clear picture for what drove your actions,’’ Young said. “Many of the high value items acquired by you were not even used.”

Murrell’s lawyer, John Scullion, told the court before the sentence was read out that the former political operative has been ostracized by his past colleagues, but he accepts blame for his actions.

“For many months he has lived in almost total isolation,” Scullion said.

The case has drawn widespread coverage in Scotland and across the U.K. ever since police searched Murrell's home on April 5, 2023, less than two months after Sturgeon resigned as leader of the Scottish National Party.

In addition to debates over the political implications of the case, newspapers and TV news featured comprehensive lists of the items Murrell bought with the embezzled money, from the luxurious to the banal.

Those included multiple expensive coffee makers, a pendant Sturgeon often was seen wearing, an egg poacher and DVDs of the TV series “Borgen” about the life of Denmark's fictional first female prime minister, which Sturgeon told reporters she liked.

Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell arrives in a prison van at Edinburgh High Court for sentencing, in Edinburgh, Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)