AI and climate change
AI has a massive carbon footprint. While it may be helpful in solving climate change through predictive analytics and optimization, techno-optimism can be problematic since it’s often used to justify slowing our transition away from fossil fuels and overconsumption. The carbon footprint from AI will also put frontline communities at increased risk.
Read a round-up of the headlines:
“These days, the buzz is all about artificial intelligence (AI), computer systems that can sense their environment, think, learn, and act in response to their programmed objectives. Because of AI’s capabilities, there are many ways it can help combat climate change, but will its potential to aid decarbonization and adaptation outweigh the enormous amounts of energy it consumes? Or will AI’s growing carbon footprint put our climate goals out of reach?”
Colombia, AI’s Growing Carbon Footprint
“We’ve built and paid for a global economy that spews out planet-warming gases, investing trillions of dollars in power plants, steel mills, factories, jets, boilers, water heaters, stoves, and SUVs that run on fossil fuels. And few people or companies will happily write off those investments so long as those products and plants still work. AI can’t remedy all that just by generating better ideas.
To raze and replace the machinery of every industry around the world at the speed now required, we will need increasingly aggressive climate policies that incentivize or force everyone to switch to cleaner plants, products, and practices…
Between nuclear fission plants, solar farms, wind turbines, and batteries, we already have every technology we need to clean up the power sector. This should be the low-hanging fruit of the energy transition. Yet in the largest economy on Earth, fossil fuels still generate 60% of the electricity. The fact that so much of our power still comes from coal, petroleum, and natural gas is a regulatory failure as much as a technological one.
MIT, Sorry, AI won’t “fix” climate change
“And as AI gets more sophisticated, it needs more energy. In the U.S., a majority of that energy comes from burning fossil fuels like coal and gas which are primary drivers of climate change.
Most companies working on AI, including ChatGPT maker OpenAI, don’t disclose their emissions. But, last week, Google released a new sustainability report with a glimpse at this data. Deep within the 86-page report, Google said its greenhouse gas emissions rose last year by 48% since 2019. It attributed that surge to its data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions.
“As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging,” the report reads.
Google declined an interview with NPR.”
NPR, Google and Microsoft report growing emissions as they double-down on AI
“Judging the evidence from projects and initiatives being carried across the globe today, it seems realistic to conclude that AI has the potential to at least help mitigate the dangers of climate crisis.
However, it’s important to remain aware of the limitations and challenges—in particular the high power requirements of AI itself.
On top of that, there’s a real danger that treating AI as a “silver bullet” will lead to us sleepwalking closer toward environmental catastrophe while we wait for clever people to come up with solutions.
This means it’s important to remember that change won’t be driven by technology alone. Averting the climate catastrophe that scientists predict we are heading for will take concerted efforts at a political level and by us as individuals.”
Forbes, Hype Or Reality: Will AI Really Solve Climate Change?
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