AI for climate: solution, challenge

The Climate Frontline is a monthly newsletter brought to you by the Government Energy and Climate Campus.

In this month's edition...

Don't miss: Where to use AI to strengthen policymaking 🦾
Vote now: How is AI most useful in your work? 🤖
Cool design: Machine-learning paint that lowers temperatures 🎨

Will Lockhart - Updates from the frontline

Exploring the relationship between climate and AI

Dr Will Lockhart OBE

Some days, it feels like all I read about is AI. That it can save our forests, but only while using all our water. That it will monitor our atmosphere - but fill it with carbon, too.

As the world looks ahead to COP30, I’m so proud that Apolitical is playing a leading role in shaping the conversation around climate, nature and AI... This week alone, to explore the fast-evolving relationship between climate and AI’s role in tackling the planetary crisis, we:

🎓 Launched a new course – 'AI and Climate: Trade-offs and Transformation'. This new resource, developed with experts at Stanford Online and available for free, tells you everything you need to know about AI’s role in the planetary crisis.
📚 Published a leadership briefing – What are the key questions government leaders should be asking when it comes to AI and climate?

🇧🇷 Hosted a roundtable of leading thinkers, researchers and government officials at Innovation Week to discuss the intersectionalities of climate and AI, in partnership with ENAP, Brazil's national school of government.

But this is just a glimpse of the work my colleagues — and the public servants who make up Apolitical’s community — are driving forward. Read on and get involved…

The latest insights from the Apolitical network

Have a climate success story to share? Publish an article on Apolitical.

Apolitical's Climate Leadership Briefing: AI and Climate

How can generative AI be used to tackle the climate and nature crises without exacerbating them through its own energy demands?

Read the report

Honing in on the "planetary best buys"

The greatest bottleneck in climate action today is human capability. Learn about the skills and institutions that turn finance into real-world progress.

Learn more

Don't miss: AI for Policymaking Prompts

Tues 25 Aug: 2-2.30pm BST, 10-10.30 EDT

Use generative AI to shape, strengthen or stress-test your thinking. The event will feature a public servant who will walk through real-world examples of how AI is supporting their policy work, offering up prompts you can adapt and use straight away.

Register now

Connect with peers: Energy and Climate

The world looks to public servants to tackle the climate and energy transition. No matter your level or role, you're tasked with developing the essential energy, climate and nature knowledge and skills needed for impactful action.

Join the Community

Vote now: How is AI most useful in your day-to-day work on climate and energy?

Poll answer options: Summarising complex documents, analysing environmental data, writing communication pieces, automating administrative tasks

Cast your vote

Course: AI and Climate: Trade-offs and Transformation

AI is already reshaping the way we live and work, but what role can it play in tackling the effects of climate change?

This short, practical course analyses how public servants can harness the power of AI to drive climate solutions, from planning resilient cities to protecting nature and powering the energy transition. Along the way, you'll hear from Stanford experts, analyse global case studies and reflect on what this could mean in a public sector context.

But AI isn’t without impact. The course also looks at the environmental cost of AI systems and identifies how governments can help.

Enrol on the course

Share with your team

In case you missed it

[Campus] Seven new courses - free for a limited time

Thanks to Apolitical's philanthropic partners, most courses on the Government Energy and Climate Campus are now free for a limited time! This includes seven new courses, offering insight into everything from climate budgeting to human rights for climate-resilient governance.

[Community] Is it time to ditch "climate change"?

We often say we’re “against climate change” but is that really the right framing? The climate will always change over time. Should we be saying adapt, mitigate, reverse? Or is it time to ditch “climate change” altogether?

[Article] 4 Nature-Based Lessons for Local Climate Leadership

How to integrate multilingualism, sweetness, camouflage, and ecosystem design into climate action and policymaking.

And finally... 🎨

You could help cool down the planet simply by repainting your house.
Using AI, an international research team have developed a material that keeps between 5C and 20C cooler than normal paint after exposure to midday sun. Over one year, paint applied to 1,000 blocks could save enough electricity to power more than 10,000 air conditioning units.

It is another example of machine learning expediting scientific advances, contributing to lower bills and habitable cities. Now isn't that cool? ❄️

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