Environmental groups use AI while warning of data centre impacts

Mixed · 2Environmental groups worldwide are using artificial intelligence to analyse climate data, track forest fires and count endangered wildlife, while warning that the technology is driving a surge in electricity demand, water use and greenhouse-gas emissions. 1 2 Mixed · 2Reuters interviewed 15 major environmental, conservation and development organisations; all said they used AI in some form and all expressed concern about the environmental impact of the data centres that power it. 2 1 Mixed · 2Ali Swanson, AI lead at Conservation International, said the group recognises AI's environmental costs but that it can help organisations move faster; the group recently began using AI to assess satellite-detected hot spots and send real-time wildfire alerts to community forest patrols in Cambodia. 2 1

Mixed · 2Many of the organisations believe AI's benefits currently outweigh its costs because it enables work that was previously difficult, expensive or impossible. 2 1 Mixed · 2Frank Pope, chief executive of Save the Elephants in Kenya, said an aerial survey of Kenya's largest protected area generated roughly 200,000 images that took nine people nine months to review manually, whereas AI models trained on Nvidia GeForce platforms can do similar analyses in hours; he said the AI results showed human surveys had missed about a third of elephants, roughly half of zebras and giraffes, and three-quarters of oryx. 2 1 Mixed · 2At the Jane Goodall Institute, a tool developed with Amazon Web Services can scan, translate and structure decades of handwritten chimpanzee field notes from Tanzania's Gombe National Park in minutes, cutting a project once expected to take 13-15 years to about two years, according to vice-president of conservation science Lilian Pintea, who said Goodall backed AI use provided people stayed firmly in control. 2 1

Mixed · 2Some groups are trying to limit AI's footprint: the World Resources Institute restricts video and image generation and caches query results, and The Nature Conservancy uses AI-powered cameras aboard commercial fishing vessels to process footage on the boats rather than uploading it to centralised data centres. 1 2 Mixed · 2Greenpeace International said it uses some AI tools mainly because software platforms it relies on include AI features, has set internal guidelines stressing transparency, human oversight and "intentional" use, and would prefer to avoid the technology; campaigner Katrin Xueying Wu said Greenpeace is asking whether it is necessary to build so many massive data centres at all. 2 1 Mixed · 2BirdLife International chief scientist Stuart Butchart said that if environmental groups can work more effectively with AI they must seriously engage with it, and that not doing so would be derelict in their duty. 2 1

Mixed · 2The International Energy Agency estimates global data centres will use about 945 terawatt-hours of electricity a year by 2030, double current consumption and about equal to Japan's annual use, producing the equivalent of more than 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, and that their water consumption will rise from about 560 billion litres in 2023 to about 1.2 trillion litres. 2 1 Right · 1Researchers at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health estimate the global data-centre footprint could more than double by 2030, reaching about twice the size of Jakarta. 2 Mixed · 2Microsoft, Amazon and Google have reported rising emissions linked partly to data centre expansion, raising questions about their long-term climate goals; Amazon told Reuters its AI products were among the most sustainable given its low-carbon energy purchases and efficiency efforts, while Microsoft and Google did not respond to requests for comment. 2 1

Mixed · 2The trade-offs are likely to feature at the UN's COP31 climate conference in November, where host Turkey will ask governments, businesses and institutions to sign a pledge on sustainable AI principles, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wants major AI companies to publicly disclose their systems' environmental impacts. 1 2