COP29: AI’s double-edged climate sword will be high on the agenda

This year’s UN climate change conference will for the first time rally the technology industry to take on the climate emergency.

COP29, which kicks off on Monday in Baku, will hold its first-ever Digitalisation Day and other roundtables with artificial intelligence’s (AI) impact on the climate high on the agenda.

AI models rely on data centres as they use servers that AI programs run day and night, which consume a lot of electricity. They also rely on energy to cool the data centres. 

The World Economic Forum estimated in April that the computer power dedicated to AI is doubling every 100 days. 

Leading cloud providers, who have significant involvement with AI, have reported a 62 per cent rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 2020 and a 78 per cent increase in electricity usage since 2023, according to the UN’s Greening Digital Companies 2024 report.

This follows the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022, which saw the exponential rise of generative AI and technology companies racing to build and get out their latest models. 

“I think at the political level or the kind of communication level, they [tech companies] are very accommodating in they all agree that [making AI sustainable] is imperative,” said Tomas Lamanauskas, the deputy secretary-general of the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

“Now, on a day-to-day practical level, sometimes commercial, let's say market kind of imperatives, overtake, and that's a bit of a problem,” he told Euronews Next. 

“So the question is how we bring back the kind of longer-term thinking into this, while people are racing to build the best AI”. 

The answer to that question will probably not be answered by the summit but Lamanauskas said that the industry and policymakers coming together is key to a greener AI. 

Digital as part of ‘core climate change agenda’

This year at COP, environment and digital ministers will also sit in the same room and discuss how they can work together, which is very rare, according to Lamanauskas. 

“I'm hopeful that helps digital to not be a side discussion, but part of the core climate change agenda,” he said.  

Just as quickly as AI is transforming the world, so is climate change. Despite AI guzzling up a lot of energy at a time when we need to cut carbon emissions, experts believe AI can supercharge climate mitigation and find alternative energy solutions. 

“When we talk about artificial intelligence or space, it helps all the different pillars to fight the climate crisis, such as monitoring and mitigation for natural disasters,” Lamanauskas said.

There are also ways to make AI more sustainable, such as nuclear energy-powered data centres or even underwater data centres.

“So it's not that we can just shut off AI and say we'll try to live without it,” said Lamanauskas.

“I think now it is about trying to make sure that it’s as sustainable as possible while also gearing up for AI’s beneficial uses as well”.