DC Climate Week was this past week! 😍 Honestly, I had forgotten how exciting it was to meet up with other climate and energy nerds that were eager to talk about data centers, AI policy, and the climate transition. I attended only 2-3 events as part of the lineup, but hey I got school, work, and Crossfit classes that I wanted to do this past week as well. 😁

I will say how refreshing it is hear to other scientists that were aware of the same papers and reports that I constantly yap about in these issues of The Climate Code. Some folks even knew more than I did when it came to load flexibility of data centers to how communities can fight back against unchecked data center expansion. Oh… Forgot to mention, community opposition was a big theme at all of the events I attended. Everyone knows now about data centers, the impacts that they can have in different dimensions from economic to environment, etc. The question is whether or not we will see more moratoriums in different states as 2026 rolls along.

Some interesting articles/resources of the week:

Ciao, 👋

Nate

Big Tech's AI Illusion: Everything is Changing (AI & Environment): What if AI isn't as green as we think? This episode explores how Big Tech is greenwashing AI's climate impact, from rising emissions to misleading narratives, based on Ketan Joshi's report, and why it matters now.

Can We Use Our Way to a More Sustainable World? (AI & Social/Economic Impacts): Doug Burger, sustainability expert Amy Luers, and optimization researcher Ishai Menache examine the global emissions implications of datacenter operations, efficiency gains, and AI's potential across electrification, materials, and food systems.

Data Centers and Energy: Is Sustainability the New Investment Engine? (AI & Environment): This episode is about AI, data centres, and sustainability but above all, about how digital growth and sustainability can be combined in practice. Elina Ussa is joined by Adam Elman, Director of Sustainability for EMEA at Google, and Asta Sihvonen-Punkka, CEO of Fingrid.

Marketcraft for AI: Designing a Better Market for Memory, Compute, and Intelligence (AI & Policy/ESG): An economist's view of the environmental impacts of AI, treating artificial intelligence as a physical industry embedded in markets for land, water, electricity, and capital. Argues that the dominant framing of AI's environmental costs — focused on the carbon intensity of individual training runs — dramatically understates the scope and complexity of the problem.

Nuclear Clouds: The Infrastructural Convergence of AI and Energy Systems (AI & Energy): This short commentary maps the convergence of industrial AI infrastructures and national energy systems, with a focus on nuclear power. Drawing on examples from the US and UK, the authors trace the political economy behind the shift from the "Carbon Cloud" (mutual dependency between the AI industry and fossil fuels) to what they term the "Nuclear Cloud" — the growing convergence of the AI and nuclear sectors.

BoreaRL: A Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning Environment for Climate-Adaptive Boreal Forest Management (AI & Biodiversity/Ecology): Introduces BoreaRL, a multi-objective reinforcement learning environment for climate-adaptive boreal forest management. Boreal forests store 30-40% of terrestrial carbon, much in climate-vulnerable permafrost soils. The authors show carbon sequestration goals are easier to optimize than permafrost preservation, and that effective policies must balance species composition and density to protect permafrost while maintaining carbon gains.

Global Energy Review 2026 (AI & Energy): The IEA's annual snapshot of world energy supply, electricity generation, technology deployment, and CO2 emissions with aggregated 2023–2025 data. Authoring Body: International Energy Agency (IEA).

Data Centres: Turning Grid Constraints into a Lever for Europe's Energy Transition (AI & Infrastructure): Argues that Europe's fragmented regulatory frameworks are blocking sustainable data center growth, and shows how data centers can become assets for the power system through flexibility, geographic, and load-shedding mechanisms. Authoring Body: Deloitte.

Water Reuse Action Plan 2.0: Multiplying Water Benefits, Maximizing American Industry, AI, and Energy Dominance (AI & Water Resources): The EPA's updated national strategy to accelerate water reuse for data center cooling, semiconductor manufacturing, electricity generation, agriculture, and more — explicitly tying water reuse to AI and energy policy. Authoring Body: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Who Deserves Rights in the Age of AI? (AI & Multiple Applications): Political scientist and AI ethics expert Josh Gellers argues that threats to animals and ecosystems along with advances in artificial intelligence challenge the assumption that rights belong exclusively to humans. Drawing on evidence from science, law, and non-Western cultures, he suggests a more-than-human rights revolution is already underway.

Can AI Help Save The Environment? (AI & Environment): Scientists are using AI in many environmental projects to help analyze data and accelerate processes. But at the same time, complex AI systems require significant resources. AI and sustainability: Is it a good fit?

Could AI Accidentally Solve Climate Change? With Amy Harder (AI & Energy): Carlo is joined by Axios national energy correspondent Amy Harder to unpack how the AI boom is rapidly reshaping America's energy system and sidelining climate politics. They dig into the rise of AI data centers, why the power grid isn't built to handle the demand, and the growing push to take data centers off grid.

Accelsius (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): Accelsius delivers two-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling solutions for the AI and HPC era. Our NeuCool technology offers serviceable, scalable, and resilient cooling for mission critical applications, with up to 50% energy savings compared to air. Location: United States.

Vertiv (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): Vertiv (NYSE: VRT) designs, builds and services mission-critical technologies, bringing together hardware, software, analytics and services for data centers, communication networks, and industrial facilities. Portfolio of power, cooling, and IT infrastructure solutions that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network. Location: United States.

Supermicro (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): Supermicro (NASDAQ: SMCI), with 30+ years of leadership in Enterprise, cloud, AI, and 5G Telco/Edge Infrastructure solutions, pioneers the industry with Building Block Solutions and Green Computing servers across servers, storage, GPU systems, rack solutions, AI, edge, and liquid cooling. Location: United States.

Track Policy (AI & Policy): A monitoring platform that maps AI and data center legislation across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Aggregates bill statuses, facility locations, energy consumption data, and political voting records — tracking 734 bills, 283 data center facilities, and 561 politicians. Price: FREE.

Data Center Drought Map (AI & Water Resources): An interactive map that lets users examine drought conditions at specific data center locations. Displays data from the U.S. Drought Monitor with five severity categories ranging from D0 (Abnormally Dry) through D4 (Exceptional). Price: FREE.

Pathways AI Data Centers (AI & Infrastructure): Explore 345+ data center locations across 15 companies and see which buyers are driving carbon requirements. Price: FREE.

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Thanks for reading the 38th 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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