Brief Author Note

We are entering the season of speaking engagements for me as an AI & Environment Researcher! 😃 

I recently was on a Greenplaces webinar panel talking about AI and sustainability along with Kate Fiala from TripleLift, Maeve Gordon from Sightly, and Adam Covati from Greenplaces.

We discussed a lot from measuring the energy use of AI to implementing Sustainable AI practices for companies to support long-term climate goals.

Check out the webinar recording here!

Chau,

Nate

Quick Links!

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AI, Policy & Power: How Nasreddine Guerfala Is Engineering the Future of Clean Energy (AI & Energy): In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Nasreddine Guerfala, Executive Vice President of Growth & DERs at Edgecom Energy and one of Canada’s 2025 Clean50 Emerging Leaders. With a career that spans continents and disciplines from engineering and legal strategy to policy influence and AI-driven energy management, Nasreddine brings a uniquely global and cross-functional lens to the clean energy transition.

Why the Ocean is the Billion-Dollar Market No One’s Watching (AI & Water Resources): In this episode, we dive into Serena's journey from traditional industries to championing the $3 trillion+ blue economy. Learn how regenerative thinking is reshaping the investment landscape, why ocean sustainability is still the least-funded SDG, and how tech, AI, and a new generation of founders are flipping the model.

Does AI Make Us Lazy Thinkers? (AI & Workforce Development): This special International Youth Day episode features the voices of youth. Three students, Hope Otieno (MSc student, UNU-IAS), Ahmad Ali Karim (RCE Regional Youth Coordinator; student, IIUM) and Michael Winter (Co-President, Oikos International), share their perspectives on how AI is reshaping their learning experiences.

Scalable Geospatial Data Generation Using AlphaEarth Foundations Model (AI & Geospatial Analysis): This study shows how Google DeepMind’s AlphaEarth Foundations can be used with simple models to extend limited geospatial datasets, demonstrated by successfully expanding U.S. vegetation classifications into Canada with strong accuracy.

Accelerating Climate Change Mitigation and Conserving Biodiversity – The Role of Advanced Digitalization for a Fast and Environmentally Sound Energy Transition Linking SEA and EIA (AI & Climate Science): This article examines how advanced digitalization and AI can enhance spatial energy planning and environmental assessments in Austria, offering solutions to data deficiencies that currently hinder biodiversity-friendly renewable energy transitions.

Small Language Models are the Future of Agentic AI (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): This paper argues that small language models are more efficient, economical, and well-suited than large models for most agentic AI tasks, advocating for their wider adoption and outlining pathways for integrating them into heterogeneous agent systems.

A Roadmap to Sustainable AI in the Public Sector (AI & Sustainability): This paper presents a strategic framework for governmental and public institutions to responsibly and effectively integrate AI technologies in a manner that supports broader sustainability goals from Capegemini.

AI for Decarbonisation: Assessing the UK Landscape for Artificial Intelligence and its Use in Decarbonisation (Climate & Energy Policy): This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the current state of artificial intelligence adoption within the UK's climate and energy sectors, exploring its potential to accelerate national decarbonisation efforts and informing future policy decisions in 2023.

AllAI Google Water Metrics Insights: 2025 Environmental Report (AI & Water Resources): This analysis presents and debunks key water usage metrics and insights based on Google’s sustainability reports from 2025 that are prevalent in data centers and AI.

Insurance That Adapts to Climate Change? (AI & Insurance Companies): This episode features Nathaniel Manning, co-founder of Kettle, to discuss how AI and parametric insurance are being used to predict wildfire risk and support property owners, ultimately reshaping climate resilience.

Google's CSO on AI and Climate Moonshots / Climate Pioneers (AI & Climate Science & Research): Kate Brandt, Google's Chief Sustainability Officer, and Heather Clancy of Trellis Group discuss AI applications and "climate moonshots" through Google's Accelerator Moonshot program.

The Environmental Consequences of Big Tech's Push to Ease Regulations for AI Development (AI & Environmental Impact): As the rapid growth of AI drives a data center boom, this article reports that big tech companies are lobbying the White House to ease environmental protections that slow the construction of new facilities.

Wetlands International Panama (AI & Water Resources): Mobilizing society to safeguard and restore wetlands for people and for nature.

Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (AI & Social/Economic Impacts): Sustainable development in Latin America.

CATIE (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza) (AI & Social/Economic Impacts): Research and education in agriculture, natural resources, and rural development.

NVIDIA's NeMoTron Nano Model (AI & Infrastructure): NVIDIA-NeMoTron-Nano-FB-01 is a large language model designed to handle both reasoning and non-reasoning tasks by first generating a reasoning trace before providing a final response. Hugging Face posted about how energy efficient this model was!

TerraMesh (AI & Geospatial Analysis): A planetary-scale, multimodal analysis-ready dataset for Earth Observation foundation models, TerraMesh merges data from multiple sources into millions of co-registered patches ready for large-scale representation learning.

CO2.js (AI & Sustainability): CO2.js is an open-source JavaScript library that enables developers to estimate the emissions related to the use of their apps, websites, and software.

AI for Organizations Grand Challenge (Open to faculty and researchers at any university or research institute globally): Stanford HAI and Google DeepMind invite computer and management science researchers worldwide to submit paradigm-shaping research that will influence the future of collaboration within organizations. 🗓️ Deadline: October 24, 2025.

Salesforce Accelerator Agents for Impact (All eligible nonprofits interested in building AI agent solutions to achieve greater impact are welcome to apply globally): As AI agents reshape our world, we champion a future where humans and agents drive social impact together. The Salesforce Accelerator – Agents for Impact equips nonprofits with funding, cutting-edge technology, and pro bono expertise to confidently create customized AI agent solutions. 🗓️ Deadline: September 10, 2025.

AI Literacy Fellowship for African Policymakers (Open to mid- to senior-level leaders from government, academia, and civil society): Apply for a 4-month virtual program designed to equip policymakers, researchers, and civil society leaders across Africa with the knowledge, tools, and networks needed to shape inclusive and responsible AI governance. 🗓️ September 7, 2025.

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 14th 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. 😆