I finished up the Semafor World Economy Conference and World Bank Spring Meetings this week and that was a … lot! I forget speaking to people can sometimes be exhausting, especially after multiple days of going back and forth across DC. Also, the weather was a damned summer nightmare, we even hit 90 degrees the other day which is insane considering it is still April! ☀

Most of the rhetoric as you would expect was around the Iran conflict, energy supply chains, and where AI/data center investment was going. In case you don’t remember, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a $1 trillion economic partnership with the U.S. in various sectors from energy to data centers. A lot of investors were concerned that the money was going to waste if Iran can simply bomb them using drones or their missile technology. However, from what I heard, the UAE is proceeding along schedule albeit under different circumstances given the conflict and what it means for the region. Investors are also looking elsewhere to build out data center infrastructure in other regions of the world that are not marred by geopolitical conflict.

Some interesting articles of the week:

Ciao, 👋

Nate

The Whole World Is Fighting About Energy (AI & Energy): Derek Thompson and energy analyst Nat Bullard discuss how two major global crises — the Iran conflict and the AI boom — both center on energy competition, and how power has become the central point of contention worldwide.

Why Data Centers Could Crash America's Power Grid | Energy Gang (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): Ed Crooks is joined by Asim Haque of PJM to explain why capacity markets are under stress, why price caps are controversial, and what happens when new demand arrives faster than new generation can be built. Amy Myers Jaffe (NYU) questions whether the industry is overcomplicating solutions.

The Week in Green Software: Green AI Tradeoffs (AI & Energy): Kate Goldenring and Chris Adams discuss the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) standard in the context of EU sustainability reporting, research on "green prompting," and how rising AI demand is disrupting the refurbished laptop market.

Orbital Data Centers as an Extreme Response to AI's Infrastructure Crunch (AI & Data Centers/Hardware/Model): Whitepaper introducing ODC.space, Atomic-6's on-demand marketplace for orbital data center capacity, positioning orbital compute as a solution to terrestrial siting and energy constraints. Authors: Wong et al.

Power Hungry: How AI Will Drive Energy Demand (AI & Energy): Investigates how expanding AI data centers will affect global electricity consumption, pricing, and emissions through 2030 — electricity costs for major AI firms nearly doubled 2019–2023, and U.S. prices could rise 0.35%–8.6% by 2030. Authors: Bogmans et al. Journal: Energy Economics.

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Corporate ESG Performance: The Moderating Role of Coercive and Normative Pressures (AI & Policy/ESG): Examines how AI implementation influences corporate ESG outcomes in Chinese listed companies via three mechanisms — green innovation, information transparency, and internal control. Authors: Liu et al. Journal: International Review of Economics & Finance.

Notice of 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders & Proxy Statement (AI & ESG): Amazon's 2026 proxy statement — relevant for its disclosures on AI, sustainability targets, and data center strategy. Authoring Body: Amazon.

Utility Spending is Rising: A Review of Utility Capital Expenditure Plans (Climate & Energy Policy): PowerLines' analysis of 51 investor-owned U.S. utilities finds $1.4T in planned grid investment through 2030, with 31 of 51 citing data centers as a top driver; residential customers could end up covering nearly half. Authoring Body: PowerLines.

The 2026 AI Index Report (AI Policy & Governance): Stanford HAI's annual index tracks AI trends across research, technical performance, responsible AI, economics, policy, and public opinion — the canonical year-over-year benchmark. Authoring Body: Stanford HAI.

Prof. Joseph Stiglitz Discusses the Impact of AI and Digital Platforms on the Information Ecosystem (AI & Ethics & Misinformation): Nobel Economist Prof. Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia) presents his paper with Maxim Ventura-Bolet at the Cambridge Disinformation Summit, April 9, 2026.

Code, Carbon, and Control: Governing the AI-Climate Nexus through Justice and Participation (AI & Multiple Applications): A presentation from the Participatory AI Research and Practice Symposium (PAIRS) in New Delhi, February 18, 2026.

50% Of AI Data Centers Have Quietly Been Cancelled Or 'Delayed' (AI & Multiple Applications): In 2025 the world's largest companies reportedly spent ~$400B on AI capital expenditures — adjusted for inflation, that's ~9 Manhattan Projects or 2 Apollo Programs, and more than was spent on building single-family residential homes over the same time.

CLōD (AI & Energy): The Unified Interface For Accessible LLMs — routes requests to datacenters with the lowest real-time energy cost. Location: North America.

ATOMIC-6 (AI & Circular Economy): Materials scientists and engineers building composite solutions via a proprietary manufacturing process for the most ambitious mobility companies operating in extreme environments. Location: North America.

Open Government Partnership (AI & Social/Economics): A multi-stakeholder initiative bringing together government and civil-society reformers to improve transparency, accountability, and participation. Location: North America.

Gaia3D (AI & Geospatial Analysis): 3D Earth visualization platform focused on creating interactive visualizations of planetary systems and environmental/geospatial data. Price: FREE.

naKnow (AI & Sustainability): Open scientific knowledge base documenting manufacturing processes, value chains, and environmental assumptions for key digital components like processors, circuit boards, and displays — supports LCA and sustainable design decisions across the digital value chain. Price: FREE.

LGND AI (AI & Geospatial Analysis): Natural-language search for satellite and aerial imagery via geo-embeddings — "search satellite and aerial imagery the way you'd search the web." Applications include biomass measurement, damage mapping, and wind/solar farm tracking. Price: Freemium.

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Thanks for reading the 37th 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.

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