AI Takes Center Stage at COP30: Climate Solution or Environmental Threat?

Artificial intelligence is front and centre at COP30

University of British Columbia provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA-FR. We live in a time often characterized as a polycrisis. One of those crises is human-caused climate change, an issue currently being discussed by delegates at the COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil. Another is disinformation, much of which has been focused on climate change. A third potential crisis comes from the implications of artificial intelligence for society and the planet. When it comes to AI and climate change, there are a variety of opinions, from the optimistic to the pessimistic and the skeptical. Given the overarching concerns about environmental harms of AI, it is surprising to some that AI is front and centre at COP30, which I am currently attending. Both COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago and Simon Stiell, executive director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, have noted the importance of AI and other aspects of technology for addressing climate change. While there has been some consideration of AI in addressing climate change at previous COPs, COP30 is the first conference where AI has been formally integrated as a central theme in the conference agenda. AI at COP30 On the first day of COP30, "science, technology and artificial intelligence" was explicitly listed as one of the key themes. Initiatives included the Green Digital Action Hub, a global platform to drive a greener, more inclusive digital transformation. Additionally, there was a session introducing the AI Climate Institute. A key goal of the AI Climate Institute is to enable Global South countries to design, adapt and implement their own AI-based climate solutions. In these and other forums, there were discussions about digital decarbonization technologies and advances in data transparency for emissions. Proponents argued these initiatives were designed to help countries harness technology to meet their climate goals. When it comes to AI and climate change, there is a tendency for people to think about the increased environmental and climate change harms that AI will bring. In this regard, there has been a lot of recent media coverage on the potential of increased carbon emissions, water use and environmental damage as a result of mining for critical minerals. A key issue is the emissions produced by data centres. As many commentators have said -- including Stiell -- data centres need to have electrical power sources if AI is to be aligned with climate action. How is AI relevant to addressing climate change? AI is already being applied in climate change mitigation. At COP30, former United States vice president Al Gore gave a presentation about the role of Climate TRACE in addressing climate change. Climate TRACE is a non-profit coalition of organizations that have been developing an inventory of exactly where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from to help governments, organizations and companies to reduce or eliminate these emissions. Climate TRACE uses satellite imagery, remote sensing, artificial intelligence and machine learning to estimate emissions. In his presentation, Gore demonstrated visual examples in a slide show. AI can play a role in reducing emissions in a number of ways. One, as noted above, is by tracking emissions. Another is by making energy systems more efficient and thus reducing emissions through energy savings. Reducing energy use and emissions were not the only type of efficiencies discussed at COP30. Conservation of water use and increased efficiencies in agricultural production were also highlighted. An example is the AI for Climate Action Award that was given to a team from Laos this year for a project using AI for farming and irrigation. Climate adaptation AI has the potential to make a big impact in the area of climate adaptation. Key issues were discussed at COP30 at a session called Smarter than the Storm: The Future of AI in Forecasting and Proactive Responses to Build More Resilient Communities. Scientific research has demonstrated that machine learning can assist local governments in their decisions about options for climate adaptation. AI can be an integral part of an early warning system. It can be used to predict floods using sensor data, predict wildfires using satellite and weather data, monitor social media for disaster response and identify areas at risk of landslides. AI tools involved in these various processes include machine learning, deep learning, natural-language processing and computer vision. Consistent with overarching concerns at COP30 about the importance of social and climate justice, proponents of community AI applications emphasized the need for transparency, affordability of data and AI systems and the sovereignty of community data. Dangers of disinformation Climate disinformation is a key type of disinformation in contemporary society. AI can either be a source or a counter to climate disinformation. At COP30, disinformation and climate denial was mentioned in a number of contexts, including by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. One key event on this topic was the announcement of a Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change, which a number of countries endorsed. AI can be considered a triple-edged sword. Unregulated expansion of AI has the potential to do enormous environmental harm and magnify misinformation and disinformation. However, principled development of AI, powered by clean energy sources, also has the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions, provide early warning to communities of climate threats, reduce the costs of adapting to a changing climate and enhance our understanding of climate change.

Artificial intelligence sparks debate at COP30 climate talks in Brazil

At the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, artificial intelligence is being cast as both a hero worthy of praise and a villain that needs policing. Tech companies and a handful of countries at the conference known as COP30 are promoting ways AI can help solve global warming, which is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They say the technology has the potential to do many things, from increasing the efficiency of electrical grids and helping farmers predict weather patterns to tracking deep-sea migratory species and designing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather. Climate groups, however, are sounding the alarm about AI's growing environmental impact, with its surging needs for electricity and water for powering searches and data centers. They say an AI boom without guardrails will only push the world farther off track from goals set by 2015 Paris Agreement to slow global warming. "AI right now is a completely unregulated beast around the world," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. On the other hand, Adam Elman, director of sustainability at Google, sees AI as "a real enabler" and one that's already making an impact. If both sides agree on anything, it's that AI is here to stay. Michal Nachmany, founder of Climate Policy Radar, which runs AI tools that track issues like national climate plans and funds to help developing countries transition to green energies like solar and wind, said there is "unbelievable interest" in AI at COP30. "Everyone is also a little bit scared," Nachmany said. "The potential is huge and the risks are huge as well." Many sessions on AI The rise of AI is becoming a more common topic at the United Nations compared to a few years ago, according to Nitin Arora, who leads the Global Innovation Hub for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the framework for international climate negotiations. The hub was launched at COP26 in Glasgow to promote ideas and solutions that can be deployed at scale, he said. So far, Arora said, those ideas have been dominated by AI. The Associated Press counted at least 24 sessions related to AI during the Brazil conference's first week. They included AI helping neighboring cities share energy, AI-backed forest crime location predictions and a ceremony for the first AI for Climate Action Award -- given to an AI project on water scarcity and climate variability in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos. Johannes Jacob, a data scientist with the German delegation, said a prototype app he is designing, called NegotiateCOP, can help countries with smaller delegations -- like El Salvador, South Africa, Ivory Coast and a few in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- process hundreds of official COP documents. The result is "leveling the playing field in the negotiations," he said. In a panel discussion, representatives from AI giants like Google and Nvidia spoke about how AI can solve issues facing the power sector. Elman with Google stressed the "need to do it responsibly" but declined to comment further. Nvidia's head of sustainability, Josh Parker, called AI the "best resource any of us can have." "AI is so democratizing," Parker said. "If you think about climate tech, climate change and all the sustainability challenges we're trying to solve here at COP, which one of those challenges would not be solved better and faster, with more intelligence." Princess Abze Djigma from Burkina Faso called AI a "breakthrough in digitalization" that she believes will be even more critical in the future. Bjorn-Soren Gigler, a senior digital and green transformation specialist with the European Commission, agreed but noted AI is "often seen as a double-edge sword" with both huge opportunities and ethical and environmental concerns. Booming AI use raises concerns The training and deploying of AI models rely on power-hungry data centers that contribute to emissions because of the electricity needed. The International Energy Agency has tracked a boom in energy consumption and demand from data centers, especially in the U.S. Data centers accounted for around 1.5% of the world's electricity consumption in 2024, according to the IEA, which found that their electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, more than four times faster than the rate of total electricity consumption. The environmental impact from AI, specifically the operations of data centers, also includes the consumption of large amounts of water in water-stressed states, according to Su with the Center for Biological Diversity, who has studied how the data center boom threatens U.S. climate goals. She said these operations will increase the national emissions of the U.S., historically the world's largest polluter. Environmental groups at COP30 are pushing for regulations to soften AI's environmental footprint, such as mandating public interest tests for proposed data centers and 100% on-site renewable energy at them. "COP can not only view AI as some type of techno solution, it has to understand the deep climate consequences," Su said.

Artificial intelligence sparks debate at COP30 climate talks in Brazil

BELEM, Brazil (AP) -- At the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, artificial intelligence is being cast as both a hero worthy of praise and a villain that needs policing. Tech companies and a handful of countries at the conference known as COP30 are promoting ways AI can help solve global warming, which is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They say the technology has the potential to do many things, from increasing the efficiency of electrical grids and helping farmers predict weather patterns to tracking deep-sea migratory species and designing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather. Climate groups, however, are sounding the alarm about AI's growing environmental impact, with its surging needs for electricity and water for powering searches and data centers. They say an AI boom without guardrails will only push the world farther off track from goals set by 2015 Paris Agreement to slow global warming. "AI right now is a completely unregulated beast around the world," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. On the other hand, Adam Elman, director of sustainability at Google, sees AI as "a real enabler" and one that's already making an impact. If both sides agree on anything, it's that AI is here to stay. Michal Nachmany, founder of Climate Policy Radar, which runs AI tools that track issues like national climate plans and funds to help developing countries transition to green energies like solar and wind, said there is "unbelievable interest" in AI at COP30. "Everyone is also a little bit scared," Nachmany said. "The potential is huge and the risks are huge as well." The rise of AI is becoming a more common topic at the United Nations compared to a few years ago, according to Nitin Arora, who leads the Global Innovation Hub for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the framework for international climate negotiations. The hub was launched at COP26 in Glasgow to promote ideas and solutions that can be deployed at scale, he said. So far, Arora said, those ideas have been dominated by AI. The Associated Press counted at least 24 sessions related to AI during the Brazil conference's first week. They included AI helping neighboring cities share energy, AI-backed forest crime location predictions and a ceremony for the first AI for Climate Action Award -- given to an AI project on water scarcity and climate variability in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos. Johannes Jacob, a data scientist with the German delegation, said a prototype app he is designing, called NegotiateCOP, can help countries with smaller delegations -- like El Salvador, South Africa, Ivory Coast and a few in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- process hundreds of official COP documents. The result is "leveling the playing field in the negotiations," he said. In a panel discussion, representatives from AI giants like Google and Nvidia spoke about how AI can solve issues facing the power sector. Elman with Google stressed the "need to do it responsibly" but declined to comment further. Nvidia's head of sustainability, Josh Parker, called AI the "best resource any of us can have." "AI is so democratizing," Parker said. "If you think about climate tech, climate change and all the sustainability challenges we're trying to solve here at COP, which one of those challenges would not be solved better and faster, with more intelligence." Princess Abze Djigma from Burkina Faso called AI a "breakthrough in digitalization" that she believes will be even more critical in the future. Bjorn-Soren Gigler, a senior digital and green transformation specialist with the European Commission, agreed but noted AI is "often seen as a double-edge sword" with both huge opportunities and ethical and environmental concerns. The training and deploying of AI models rely on power-hungry data centers that contribute to emissions because of the electricity needed. The International Energy Agency has tracked a boom in energy consumption and demand from data centers, especially in the U.S. Data centers accounted for around 1.5% of the world's electricity consumption in 2024, according to the IEA, which found that their electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, more than four times faster than the rate of total electricity consumption. The environmental impact from AI, specifically the operations of data centers, also includes the consumption of large amounts of water in water-stressed states, according to Su with the Center for Biological Diversity, who has studied how the data center boom threatens U.S. climate goals. She said these operations will increase the national emissions of the U.S., historically the world's largest polluter. Environmental groups at COP30 are pushing for regulations to soften AI's environmental footprint, such as mandating public interest tests for proposed data centers and 100% on-site renewable energy at them. "COP can not only view AI as some type of techno solution, it has to understand the deep climate consequences," Su said. ___ Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein in Belem, Brazil, contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org ___ This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews' Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.

Artificial intelligence sparks debate at COP30 climate talks in Brazil

BELEM, Brazil -- At the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, artificial intelligence is being cast as both a hero worthy of praise and a villain that needs policing. Tech companies and a handful of countries at the conference known as COP30 are promoting ways AI can help solve global warming, which is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They say the technology has the potential to do many things, from increasing the efficiency of electrical grids and helping farmers predict weather patterns to tracking deep-sea migratory species and designing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather. Climate groups, however, are sounding the alarm about AI's growing environmental impact, with its surging needs for electricity and water for powering searches and data centers. They say an AI boom without guardrails will only push the world farther off track from goals set by 2015 Paris Agreement to slow global warming. "AI right now is a completely unregulated beast around the world," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. On the other hand, Adam Elman, director of sustainability at Google, sees AI as "a real enabler" and one that's already making an impact. If both sides agree on anything, it's that AI is here to stay. Michal Nachmany, founder of Climate Policy Radar, which runs AI tools that track issues like national climate plans and funds to help developing countries transition to green energies like solar and wind, said there is "unbelievable interest" in AI at COP30. "Everyone is also a little bit scared," Nachmany said. "The potential is huge and the risks are huge as well." The rise of AI is becoming a more common topic at the United Nations compared to a few years ago, according to Nitin Arora, who leads the Global Innovation Hub for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the framework for international climate negotiations. The hub was launched at COP26 in Glasgow to promote ideas and solutions that can be deployed at scale, he said. So far, Arora said, those ideas have been dominated by AI. The Associated Press counted at least 24 sessions related to AI during the Brazil conference's first week. They included AI helping neighboring cities share energy, AI-backed forest crime location predictions and a ceremony for the first AI for Climate Action Award -- given to an AI project on water scarcity and climate variability in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos. Johannes Jacob, a data scientist with the German delegation, said a prototype app he is designing, called NegotiateCOP, can help countries with smaller delegations -- like El Salvador, South Africa, Ivory Coast and a few in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- process hundreds of official COP documents. The result is "leveling the playing field in the negotiations," he said. In a panel discussion, representatives from AI giants like Google and Nvidia spoke about how AI can solve issues facing the power sector. Elman with Google stressed the "need to do it responsibly" but declined to comment further. Nvidia's head of sustainability, Josh Parker, called AI the "best resource any of us can have." "AI is so democratizing," Parker said. "If you think about climate tech, climate change and all the sustainability challenges we're trying to solve here at COP, which one of those challenges would not be solved better and faster, with more intelligence." Princess Abze Djigma from Burkina Faso called AI a "breakthrough in digitalization" that she believes will be even more critical in the future. Bjorn-Soren Gigler, a senior digital and green transformation specialist with the European Commission, agreed but noted AI is "often seen as a double-edge sword" with both huge opportunities and ethical and environmental concerns. The training and deploying of AI models rely on power-hungry data centers that contribute to emissions because of the electricity needed. The International Energy Agency has tracked a boom in energy consumption and demand from data centers, especially in the U.S. Data centers accounted for around 1.5% of the world's electricity consumption in 2024, according to the IEA, which found that their electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, more than four times faster than the rate of total electricity consumption. The environmental impact from AI, specifically the operations of data centers, also includes the consumption of large amounts of water in water-stressed states, according to Su with the Center for Biological Diversity, who has studied how the data center boom threatens U.S. climate goals. She said these operations will increase the national emissions of the U.S., historically the world's largest polluter. Environmental groups at COP30 are pushing for regulations to soften AI's environmental footprint, such as mandating public interest tests for proposed data centers and 100% on-site renewable energy at them. "COP can not only view AI as some type of techno solution, it has to understand the deep climate consequences," Su said. ___ Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein in Belem, Brazil, contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org ___ This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews' Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.

Artificial intelligence sparks debate at COP30 climate talks in Brazil

BELEM, Brazil (AP) -- At the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, artificial intelligence is being cast as both a hero worthy of praise and a villain that needs policing. Tech companies and a handful of countries at the conference known as COP30 are promoting ways AI can help solve global warming, which is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They say the technology has the potential to do many things, from increasing the efficiency of electrical grids and helping farmers predict weather patterns to tracking deep-sea migratory species and designing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather. Climate groups, however, are sounding the alarm about AI's growing environmental impact, with its surging needs for electricity and water for powering searches and data centers. They say an AI boom without guardrails will only push the world farther off track from goals set by 2015 Paris Agreement to slow global warming. "AI right now is a completely unregulated beast around the world," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. On the other hand, Adam Elman, director of sustainability at Google, sees AI as "a real enabler" and one that's already making an impact. If both sides agree on anything, it's that AI is here to stay. Michal Nachmany, founder of Climate Policy Radar, which runs AI tools that track issues like national climate plans and funds to help developing countries transition to green energies like solar and wind, said there is "unbelievable interest" in AI at COP30. "Everyone is also a little bit scared," Nachmany said. "The potential is huge and the risks are huge as well." Many sessions on AI The rise of AI is becoming a more common topic at the United Nations compared to a few years ago, according to Nitin Arora, who leads the Global Innovation Hub for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the framework for international climate negotiations. The hub was launched at COP26 in Glasgow to promote ideas and solutions that can be deployed at scale, he said. So far, Arora said, those ideas have been dominated by AI. The Associated Press counted at least 24 sessions related to AI during the Brazil conference's first week. They included AI helping neighboring cities share energy, AI-backed forest crime location predictions and a ceremony for the first AI for Climate Action Award -- given to an AI project on water scarcity and climate variability in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos. Johannes Jacob, a data scientist with the German delegation, said a prototype app he is designing, called NegotiateCOP, can help countries with smaller delegations -- like El Salvador, South Africa, Ivory Coast and a few in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- process hundreds of official COP documents. The result is "leveling the playing field in the negotiations," he said. In a panel discussion, representatives from AI giants like Google and Nvidia spoke about how AI can solve issues facing the power sector. Elman with Google stressed the "need to do it responsibly" but declined to comment further. Nvidia's head of sustainability, Josh Parker, called AI the "best resource any of us can have." "AI is so democratizing," Parker said. "If you think about climate tech, climate change and all the sustainability challenges we're trying to solve here at COP, which one of those challenges would not be solved better and faster, with more intelligence." Princess Abze Djigma from Burkina Faso called AI a "breakthrough in digitalization" that she believes will be even more critical in the future. Bjorn-Soren Gigler, a senior digital and green transformation specialist with the European Commission, agreed but noted AI is "often seen as a double-edge sword" with both huge opportunities and ethical and environmental concerns. Booming AI use raises concerns The training and deploying of AI models rely on power-hungry data centers that contribute to emissions because of the electricity needed. The International Energy Agency has tracked a boom in energy consumption and demand from data centers, especially in the U.S. Data centers accounted for around 1.5% of the world's electricity consumption in 2024, according to the IEA, which found that their electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, more than four times faster than the rate of total electricity consumption. The environmental impact from AI, specifically the operations of data centers, also includes the consumption of large amounts of water in water-stressed states, according to Su with the Center for Biological Diversity, who has studied how the data center boom threatens U.S. climate goals. She said these operations will increase the national emissions of the U.S., historically the world's largest polluter. Environmental groups at COP30 are pushing for regulations to soften AI's environmental footprint, such as mandating public interest tests for proposed data centers and 100% on-site renewable energy at them. "COP can not only view AI as some type of techno solution, it has to understand the deep climate consequences," Su said. ___ Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein in Belem, Brazil, contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org ___ This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews' Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.

Artificial intelligence sparks debate at COP30 climate talks in Brazil

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic at COP30 climate talks in Belem, Brazil. Tech companies highlight AI's role in fighting global warming, from grid efficiency to weather prediction. However, climate groups warn of AI's growing electricity and water needs. They urge regulations to curb its environmental impact. Both sides acknowledge AI's significant potential and risks. BELEM, Brazil - At the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, artificial intelligence is being cast as both a hero worthy of praise and a villain that needs policing. Tech companies and a handful of countries at the conference known as COP30 are promoting ways AI can help solve global warming, which is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They say the technology has the potential to do many things, from increasing the efficiency of electrical grids and helping farmers predict weather patterns to tracking deep-sea migratory species and designing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather. Climate groups, however, are sounding the alarm about AI's growing environmental impact, with its surging needs for electricity and water for powering searches and data centers. They say an AI boom without guardrails will only push the world farther off track from goals set by 2015 Paris Agreement to slow global warming. "AI right now is a completely unregulated beast around the world," said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. On the other hand, Adam Elman, director of sustainability at Google, sees AI as "a real enabler" and one that's already making an impact. If both sides agree on anything, it's that AI is here to stay. Michal Nachmany, founder of Climate Policy Radar, which runs AI tools that track issues like national climate plans and funds to help developing countries transition to green energies like solar and wind, said there is "unbelievable interest" in AI at COP30. "Everyone is also a little bit scared," Nachmany said. "The potential is huge and the risks are huge as well." Many sessions on AI The rise of AI is becoming a more common topic at the United Nations compared to a few years ago, according to Nitin Arora, who leads the Global Innovation Hub for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the framework for international climate negotiations. The hub was launched at COP26 in Glasgow to promote ideas and solutions that can be deployed at scale, he said. So far, Arora said, those ideas have been dominated by AI. The Associated Press counted at least 24 sessions related to AI during the Brazil conference's first week. They included AI helping neighboring cities share energy, AI-backed forest crime location predictions and a ceremony for the first AI for Climate Action Award - given to an AI project on water scarcity and climate variability in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos. Johannes Jacob, a data scientist with the German delegation, said a prototype app he is designing, called NegotiateCOP, can help countries with smaller delegations - like El Salvador, South Africa, Ivory Coast and a few in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - process hundreds of official COP documents. The result is "leveling the playing field in the negotiations," he said. In a panel discussion, representatives from AI giants like Google and Nvidia spoke about how AI can solve issues facing the power sector. Elman with Google stressed the "need to do it responsibly" but declined to comment further. Nvidia's head of sustainability, Josh Parker, called AI the "best resource any of us can have." "AI is so democratizing," Parker said. "If you think about climate tech, climate change and all the sustainability challenges we're trying to solve here at COP, which one of those challenges would not be solved better and faster, with more intelligence." Princess Abze Djigma from Burkina Faso called AI a "breakthrough in digitalization" that she believes will be even more critical in the future. Bjorn-Soren Gigler, a senior digital and green transformation specialist with the European Commission, agreed but noted AI is "often seen as a double-edge sword" with both huge opportunities and ethical and environmental concerns. Booming AI use raises concerns The training and deploying of AI models rely on power-hungry data centers that contribute to emissions because of the electricity needed. The International Energy Agency has tracked a boom in energy consumption and demand from data centers, especially in the U.S. Data centers accounted for around 1.5% of the world's electricity consumption in 2024, according to the IEA, which found that their electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, more than four times faster than the rate of total electricity consumption. The environmental impact from AI, specifically the operations of data centers, also includes the consumption of large amounts of water in water-stressed states, according to Su with the Center for Biological Diversity, who has studied how the data center boom threatens U.S. climate goals. She said these operations will increase the national emissions of the U.S., historically the world's largest polluter. Environmental groups at COP30 are pushing for regulations to soften AI's environmental footprint, such as mandating public interest tests for proposed data centers and 100% on-site renewable energy at them. "COP can not only view AI as some type of techno solution, it has to understand the deep climate consequences," Su said. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)