Summary

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, requiring rapid action spanning many communities, approaches, and tools. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been proposed as one such tool, with significant opportunities to accelerate climate action via applications such as forecasting solar power production, optimizing building heating and cooling systems, pinpointing deforestation from satellite imagery, and analyzing corporate financial disclosures for climate-relevant information. At the same time, AI is a general-purpose technology with many applications across society, which means it has also been applied in ways that impede climate action both through immediate effects and broader systemic effects.

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In this report, we provide actionable recommendations as to how governments can support the responsible use of AI in the context of climate change. These recommendations were obtained via consultation with a broad set of stakeholders, and span three primary categories: (a) supporting the responsible use of AI for climate change mitigation and adaptation, (b) reducing the negative impacts of AI where it may be used in ways that are incompatible with climate goals, and (c) building relevant implementation, evaluation, and governance capabilities for and among a wide range of entities. To illustrate these recommendations, we additionally provide a booklet of high-potential AI-for-climate use cases illustrating the capabilities of AI for climate action across different sectors, and describing policy-relevant bottlenecks such use cases may face in terms of development, deployment, and scaling.