A short query of ~0.3 Wh emits about 0.02 g of CO2 in France (electricity mix ~55 g/kWh) and about 0.12 g in the United States (mix ~400 g/kWh). CO2 therefore depends less on the query itself than on the country where the data centre is located: the same Wh can emit up to 8 times more depending on the carbon intensity of the grid.
Read the source article: How much energy does a ChatGPT query use? About 0.3 Wh in 2026