Brief Author Note

Welcome to the 1st issue of The Climate Code! This newsletter is designed to be a weekly digest of the newest resources that are added to the open-access AI & Environment Resource Hub database. You will get my top 3 picks of each category on a weekly basis:

🎧 Podcast episodes
📄 Scientific papers
🏛️ Policy documents
🎥 Multimedia (i.e. YouTube videos)
🌍 Organizations
🛠️ Tools

As time progresses, I will design more tools that I will integrate into the newsletter to expand the scope of the weekly digest.

Thanks for giving the newsletter a try!

Now, let’s dive in. 👇️ 

Quick Links!

• Podcast Episodes

• Scientific Papers

• Policy Documents

• Multimedia

• Organizations

• Tools

• Submit Resources

Avoided Emissions Thanks to Tech (AI and Environment): Can a digital company be “carbon negative”? What should we think of these claims of “tons of carbon avoided” coming from 2nd hand platforms such as Vinted or Back Market? 

How Energy Will Shape The Future of AI (AI and Energy): In this episode, host Dan Hewitt speaks with Thomas Spencer and Siddharth Singh, lead authors of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) groundbreaking new report on data centers and AI’s energy demand.

Why You Need Hardware Standards for Green Software (AI and Hardware): Chris Adams is joined by Zachary Smith and My Truong dive into the challenges of improving hardware efficiency in data centers, the importance of standardization, and how emerging technologies like two-phase liquid cooling systems can reduce emissions.

Safe AI for Coral Reefs: Benchmarking Out-of-Distribution Detection Algorithms for Coral Reef Image Surveys (AI & Ocean Conservation): This study benchmarks out-of-distribution (OOD) detection algorithms on coral reef image datasets to improve uncertainty estimation in deep learning, finding that simple methods can enhance the reliability and safety of environmental monitoring under shifting conditions.

How Hungry is AI? Benchmarking Energy, Water, and Carbon Footprint of LLM Inference (AI and Environment): This paper presents a benchmarking framework that quantifies the environmental impact of LLM inference across 30 models, revealing stark differences in energy and water use and highlighting the urgent need for sustainability standards in large-scale AI deployment.

How Do Companies Manage the Environmental Sustainability of AI? An Interview Study About Green AI Efforts and Regulations (AI and Sustainability): Most industry practitioners prioritize business efficiency over environmental sustainability when adopting AI, showing limited awareness or action toward Green AI practices, with current regulations like the EU AI Act and CSRD having minimal influence on behavior.

Deep Dive into the Environmental Impacts of AI (AI and Sustainability): Uncover AI’s carbon impact and strategies for sustainable innovation and best practices for Sustainable AI.

Locating AI Data Centers on DOE Land (AI and Energy): This paper provides public comments from the authors in response to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2025 “Request for Information on Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure on DOE Lands” affiliated with the RAND Corporation.

Powering Sustainable AI in the United States (AI and Energy): Schneider Electric breaks down what it is going to take to power Sustainable AI through a combination of policy, supply and demand scenarios, and pathways.

AI for Climate and Nature Workshops Playlist (AI and Environmental Impact): This video playlist features lightning talks from leading researchers, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers across AI, climate, and nature to explore opportunities for impact with the Bezos Earth Fund.

Towards the Age of Computation and AI for High Performance Climate (AI and Climate Science): This talk explores how advances in AI and computation are transforming climate modeling, enabling higher-resolution simulations and improving data assimilation through machine learning.

This New Model Can Accelerate The Energy Transition (AI and Energy): We need to move beyond simply matching annual energy use with renewables and embrace a new model: the Clean Transition Tariff. This innovative approach fosters collaboration between corporations and utilities to accelerate the deployment of next-generation clean energy technologies.

Addax Data Science (AI & Conservation Science): Addax offers customised coding solutions for more efficient data analysis and intelligent workflow automation. For ecologists and nature conservationists. Providing tools to spend less time on boring tasks and more time on nature conservation.

The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (AI & Agriculture): The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) is enabling data-driven solutions to improve human and planetary health by unlocking food composition data and making them globally accessible with using AI to make data analysis easier.

Elementl Power (AI & Energy): Elementl Power is a technology-agnostic advanced nuclear project developer (DevCo) and Independent Power Producer (IPP). Elementl’s mission is to catalyze the deployment of safe and affordable next-generation nuclear projects. 

 CarbonAware (AI & Infrastructure): CarbonAware is a suite of open-source tools and libraries designed to help developers build applications that can reduce their carbon footprint by making intelligent decisions based on real-time and forecasted carbon intensity data.

Green Software Foundation’s Policy Radar Tool (AI & Policy): The GSF’s Policy Radar's primary goal is to proactively engage with policymakers and shape future legislation, fostering a deeper understanding of the policy landscape and enabling members to participate effectively in policy development.

AI Impact Tracker (AI & Sustainability): Estimate the energy and water footprint of your AI usage. This Google Chrome extension uses the length of your messages and ChatGPT's replies to estimate energy usage based on GPT-4o's characteristics. Keep in mind, these are estimates!

If you have resources that you wish to submit to the AI & Environment Resource Hub, fill out the Google Form! Thank you for suggesting resources to add to the Resource Hub. 🙃 

That’s it for this week.

Thanks for reading the first issue of The Climate Code! It means a lot to me and we have more coming in the future, so definitely stick around! 🏃‍♂️💛

Nate

P.S.

New here? Check out the AI & Environment Resource Hub if you have no idea what it is. 😆