Essay by Eric Worrall
The researchers claim “behavioural change” as a field where AI can help.
JUNE 23, 2025
AI Could Be Harnessed to Cut More Emissions Than It Creates
Power-hungry AI and associated data centers could make the grid cleaner, eventually cutting more climate-change-causing emissions than they produce
BY SARA SCHONHARDT & E&E NEWS
CLIMATEWIRE | Artificial intelligence could cut global climate pollution by up to 5.4 billion metric tons a year over the next decade if it’s harnessed in ways that would improve transportation, energy and food production.
…
“The key will be to channel practical AI applications towards key impact areas to accelerate the market adoption rate and efficiency of low-carbon solutions,” the study said, noting that governments will have a vital role to play.
“Governments must regulate AI to minimise their environmental footprint,” the study said, pointing to the need for energy efficient AI models and the use of renewable energy to power data centers.
…
The International Energy Agency projects that by 2030 data centers will consume twice as much electricity as they do today. Growing energy demands are already challenging the U.S. grid, and oil companies are using AI to find new areas to drill. BloombergNEF has said fossil fuels will provide most of the new power for data centers over the next decade, imperiling efforts to cut carbon pollution.
Read more: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-and-data-centers-could-cut-more-climate-change-causing-emissions-than/
…
The study referenced by the Scientific American article;
- Perspective
- Open access
- Published: 23 June 2025
Green and intelligent: the role of AI in the climate transition
- Nicholas Stern,
- Mattia Romani,
- Roberta Pierfederici,
- Manuel Braun,
- Daniel Barraclough,
- Shajeeshan Lingeswaran,
- Elizabeth Weirich-Benet &
- Niklas Niemann
npj Climate Action volume 4, Article number: 56 (2025) Cite this article
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play a powerful role in supporting climate action while boosting sustainable and inclusive economic growth. However, limited research exists on the potential influence of AI on the low-carbon transition. Here we identify five areas through which AI can help build an effective response to climate threats. We estimate the potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions through AI applications in three key sectors—power, food, and mobility—which collectively contribute nearly half of global emissions. This is compared with the increase in data centre-related emissions generated by all AI-related activities.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-025-00252-3
One area where the researchers believe AI can help is “nudging and behaviour change”. From the study;
Nudging and behavioural change
Changes in lifestyle and consumer behaviour can reduce 40-70% of greenhouse gas emissions by 205013. Leveraging AI towards supporting more sustainable consumption patterns is important to enable a systemic shift. In the context of increasing global resource consumption (projected to go up 60% by 206023), optimisation of production will not be enough; demand must also adapt by promoting more sustainable lifestyles, conscious consumption and reducing overall environmental impact. However, despite growing awareness and willingness to act, consumers often struggle to identify the most climate-friendly options due to information asymmetry and inefficient market signals. Personalised recommendations can empower consumers to adopt low-carbon technologies by suggesting options that align with their needs while minimising their environmental impact.
The potential for AI to overcome psychological barriers and tailor interventions is also shown by examples in specific sectors. In the power sector, energy management is a key area where AI effectively drives sustainable consumer behaviour. Google’s Nest uses sensors, smart home systems, and AI-driven learning to optimise heating and cooling based on real-time weather and user preferences24. Similarly, Oracle’s Opower combines AI with behavioural science to nudge energy savings through customer engagement25. By channelling complex data into clear, personalised recommendations, it helps to overcome cognitive limitations that hinder pro-environmental behaviour. The potential of technologies of this type is huge, as lowering thermostats by just 1 degree could save UK households £670 million annually and reduce CO2 emissions by 3.5 million tonnes26. …
Read more: same study as above
This theme is reinforced in the “Modelling climate systems and policy interventions” section;
… AI models can also be applied to better design and implement policies for climate action, by generating insights and predictions around complex climate policy scenarios or monitoring the effectiveness of policy implementation. The Climate Policy Radar, for example, uses AI to create open-source tools that assist governments in designing best-practice climate policies based on evidence from thousands of case studies30. A recent study used Machine Learning to analyse roughly 1500 climate policies implemented between 1998 and 2022 across 41 countries, to identify those that were able to reduce carbon emissions most effectively31.
Furthermore, AI can also contribute to developing new economic models that include “Beyond GDP” metrics (for a comprehensive review see Jansen et al.32). Policymaking has long focused on economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), diverting attention from other societal goals, such as sustainability, personal well-being and equality. Thanks to the ability of processing large and diverse types of datasets and running complex modelling tools, AI can help integrate “Beyond GDP” metrics into current macro-economic models. This could facilitate policymakers in making informed decisions that are directed towards shaping a sustainable and inclusive future. …
Read more: same study as above
To be fair, the examples the researchers gave were positive, about Winnow Vision’s cameras helping commercial chefs to increase profits by reducing waste, and helping commuters find better routes to their destinations.
AI has the potential to help as much as it hinders regard to personal freedom – AI powered research tools could penetrate the fog of lies and help provide access to reliable information. This freedom AI concept at least has the potential to preserve the current status quo, if not improve consumer knowledge.
Of course, the central premise of the study, that AI has the potential to reduce emissions, seems utterly nonsensical given all the power plants which are springing up in response to the AI boom. If AI was reducing emissions, why would we need all the new power plants? Let me know when the power plant boom starts fizzling out, and we can re-evaluate whether AI is reducing the need for energy consumption faster than new AI data warehouses drive up demand for power.
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I knew that AI could regularly hallucinate. Until now, I did not know that human AI researchers could also regularly hallucinate.
LOL 😀. More a desperate attempt to stay relevant IMO.
From a different website:
“I believe the biggest threat from AI is its lack of humanity. No matter how smart it gets pulling together data and making a decision it will never care who or what the answer effects or possibly harms. Eliminate the person and you eliminate the best decision.”
No, haven’t you seen the movies? The biggest threat is when “AI” becomes ‘self-aware’ and sees humanity as a threat to IT which must then be “eliminated.” (Or shall I say, “TERMINATED” in my Schwarzenegger accent…)
That, or it sees humanity as a threat to itself that needs to be controlled, in accordance with a meta application of the Three Laws
In order to let AI have a say in this matter, I ran the Scienterrific American article by ChatGPT 4o. Here’s its generalized summary: “The article makes a compelling case for AI as a climate tool—but is overreaching in its confidence. The narrative leans more toward a hopeful projection than a grounded forecast, glossing over the infrastructure, policy, and resource challenges that must be addressed first.” To say the least. Crystal ball gazing may not be the most appropriate tool for now.
Don’t worry, they have a crack team who can step in to adjust the AI when it provides inconvenient answers.
Crack? No drugs here. 😉
No drugs? Then how do they hallucinate?
Crack team?
Maybe that’s what Stern et al were on when they hallucinated this one
You won that race. LOL
If you can ask AI whether AI is a good idea, and AI says no, then AI probably is not very I.
Hey, I’ve seen the movie where AI becomes self aware… 🙂
More than 1 movie.
Fact: Elon Musk is behind Grok.
Fact: Elon Musk is behind Tesla
Fact: Elon Musk led DOGE and found hundreds of billions if not trillions in government waste and fraud
Fact: Despite finding hundreds of billions and possibly trillions in waste and fraud, Government won’t cut any of it and wants to grow even more inefficient, fraudulent and wasteful
Conclusion: Only Government can dictate Elon Musk’s businesses to be more efficient and mindful of “renewable energy”.
Actually DOGE did not find “hundreds of billions if not trillions”. The verified budget savings stand at between 2 billion (the Atlantic) and $32 billion (the BBC). On top of which
cuts at the IRS could cost as much as $500 billion due to a decrease in tax revenue.
Couple that with the fact that so far in 2025 US government spending is 7% higher than in 2024 it would seem that DOGE has been a complete failure. To go from claiming to be able to cut $2 trillion from the government’s budget to increasing the budget by 7% has to be one of the more remarkable budget failures in recent years.
Your fantasy, we’ll stay out of it. Ridiculous is thy middle name.
Never engage in a battle of wits with the unarmed. They never know when they have lost.
I am curious. Which bit of the above is a fantasy. The claim from the Atlantic is at
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/05/musk-doge-spending-cuts/682736/
which states that “Once such mistakes as false contract cancellations, triple counts of the same reform, and the inclusion of contracts that expired decades ago were fixed, verified budget savings stood at just $2 billion.”
The BBC article is at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4j33klz33o
and the figure there shows the savings of $32 Billion.
The estimates for the potential increased costs as a result for IRS cuts come
from:
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/doges-big-illusion-the-heavy-costs-of-the-trump-administrations-so-called-efficiency/
while other estimates include over $1 trillion dollars lost in revenue over the next 10 years. See
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-fiscal-impact-of-irs-staffing-cuts/
while the 7% increase in spending comes from the Congressional Budget Office and can be seen at
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61196/html
The “tax and spend” types always think “reduction in tax rates = reduction in tax revenues.” But history shows them to be 180 degrees wrong.
Scientific American has been stupidly political since at least the 1980’s.
As observed before after its sale to Springer/Nature, SciAm is no longer scientific nor American.
Nope, I’m not buying it. This is just a bunch of fancy talk by people who know they are losing the CAGW, Net Zero campaign. They understand that they haven’t made their case with the average guy so they are hoping AI will be a more effective form of propaganda. They need to pack their bags, go home and leave us alone.
It’s a remarkable thing, isn’t it? More than 40 years of unrelenting propaganda of the most insulting and demeaning kind, and the public still refuses to buy their nonsense.
Sorry Sara Schonhardt, author,
Point blank I refuse to read, let alone think about, articles with the phrase “Governments must regulate (anything, here AI) to minimise their environmental footprint.”
Such mindless waffle, repeated all too often by lemming scientists, has contributed to large problems with electricity supply in many countries.
You, Sara, are not helping to solve a big problem, you are making it worse. If anyone hears you and acts your preferred way, they will also make problems worse. Listen to your experienced elders who have seen and made and enjoyed better systems.
Blind Freddie has been able to see for decades that private enterprise and use of market forces created the best electricity supplies in history. Then, environment-crazed bedwetters forced their destructive ways on these systems. Explain why real prices doubled when your ways prevailed and reliability was torn to shreds by “renewables” when large areas of natural countryside were cleared, new access roads and new power lines destroying “the environment” not making it better.
Please explain why government intervention and regulation usually become a big, costly, frustrating addition to the work agendas of companies who had been left alone to profit and produce happily until those dreadful words “I’m from the government and I”m here to help”.
Geoff S
The only problem she is interested in is trying to herd people into succumbing to communism and complete state control over their lives.
Mind control, too.
““Governments must regulate AI to minimise their environmental footprint,” the study said, pointing to the need for energy efficient AI models and the use of renewable energy to power data centers.”
Yeah, right. Government leads industry in being efficient – said no one, except Scientific American writers looking for federal grants.
“…AI powered research tools could penetrate the fog of lies and help provide access to reliable information.”
Precise, tightly specified prompting can help with this.
I thought Grok did a good job with this one:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/11/open-thread-143/#comment-4071246
And if the massive power of directed search is also used, it is a powerful force multiplier for the honest investigator.
This is just my current take on the matter.
“Artificial intelligence could cut global climate pollution by up to 5.4 billion metric tons a year over the next decade if it’s
harnessed in ways that would improvegiven totalitarian power over all transportation, energy and food production.”“Artificial intelligence could cut global climate pollution by up to 5.4 billion metric tons a year”
“global climate pollution”
WTF is “global climate pollution“?
Another hyperbole created to instill fear.
““Governments must regulate AI to minimise their environmental footprint,””
After all, the government is SO SMART- they’re fully capable of knowing how to regulate it. /s
In order to regulate, the Government must know what has to be done and how to do it.
Just telling AI to minimize… will get a blank stare in return.
“consumers often struggle to identify the most climate-friendly options due to
information asymmetryevil climate deniers” /s“Information asymmetry” = “This is not the information we want you to see.”
Aka “Not the propaganda they want to feed you.”
Yuh, right- sure, just like that… gonna be a piece of cake and it’ll come up with genius ideas to reduce carbon and save the planet. /s
Man, what a crock.
Totally insane. AI will rule the world. All hail our great leader, AI- who can overcome our resistance and intervene when we make the choices we prefer! Whoever wrote this shit is bonkers.
“cameras helping commercial chefs to increase profits by reducing waste”
Yuh, sure- just what chefs want, some AI watching his/her work, then saying how to reduce waste. Those cameras won’t last long. They’ll be getting mooned. 🙂
How long would it be until they decide that not only commercial chefs needed to be watched for waste, and wanted to do the same in family kitchens?
By making everything ‘smart’ and connected to the internet, then monitored w social credit scores. A brave, new world!
“AI powered research tools could penetrate the fog of lies and help provide access to reliable information.”
I don’t know much about AI, but one thing is for sure- that is bull*hit.
When a paper includes a phrase like “sustainable and equitable economic growth” it goes in file 13.
“AI, please explain what a climate noodge is, and why you shouldn’t be one”.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
— The Borg
Seems AI is going to assist in the evolution of the human hive mind, which is well underway.
The IEA also say that globally data centre use of electricity has been growing at more than 4 times the rate of total electricity consumption since 2017 and their consumption is set to double to more than 945TWh by 2030 equivalent to slightly more than Japan’s total electricity consumption today.
They expect them to account for more than 50% of electricity demand growth by 2030 “when they will consume more electricity than the production of aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy intensive goods combined”
IEA ‘Energy and AI’ (April 2025)
So … which AI are we talking about? Data, Lore, Skynet, VICKI, HAL, The Matrix, Big Brother, …?
Or maybe AI will just develop the med from the lines in that old song, “Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today.”?
By going nuclear, of course. Nuclear fission is low emission.
AI is only as good as the input question/ solution parameter.
Ie, you get the answer you are looking for by narrowing the horizon. If you widen it you get more diverse options that might contain contradictions.
AI is both neutral AND biased. It is up to the applicant where and when the bird lands. So that one could state: i asked AI and this is what it said. Nothing to do with me..
I’m sure most AI platforms being developed by the same people who have been silencing the views of one end of the political spectrum quite vigorously will have a very deliberate bias built in via their “training.”