AI worsens climate change, integrated assessment shows

📅 2026-08-25
📈 Citations: 0
Influential: 0
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🤖 AI Summary
研究提出一个整合AI对排放、产出和气候损害影响的框架,分析AI加剧气候变化的问题,区分ICT类和工业革命类AI前景,发现减缓措施与AI发展相辅相成。
📝 Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) interacts with climate in various ways, while a unified analytical framework of this intricate interplay is lacking. To align AI investment with climate policy, we propose such a framework integrating AI's impact on emissions, output, and climate damages into the DICE model. We distinguish between ICT-like and Industrial Revolution (IR)-like AI prospects. Calibrated to the best available evidence, we find that AI development is net polluting. Under current low abatement, ICT-like AI adds 0.1 degree C to 2100 warming, while IR-like AI adds 0.8 degree C. The associated climate costs offset roughly one-fifth and one-quarter of AI's economic gains, respectively. Meeting the 2 degree C target saves the optimal ICT(IR)-like AI investment rate by 2100 from 3.3% (5.1%) under the low-abatement scenario to 3.7% (12.7%), indicating that mitigation is complementary to AI development. We further show that the investment trade-off between AI and abatement is driven primarily by AI's economic prospects, not by its emissions footprint.
Problem

Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.

Artificial Intelligence
Climate Change
Integrated Assessment
Emissions
Economic Gains
Innovation

Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.

unified analytical framework
DICE model
AI's economic prospects
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H
Huiying Ye
School of Economics and Management, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, 300000, China; Exploratory Modeling of Human-Natural Systems Research Group, Advancing Systems Analysis Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, A-2361, Austria
R
Richard S. J. Tol
Department of Economics, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9RH, UK; Institute for Environmental Studies, Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; CESifo, Munich, Germany; Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA
F
Fangzhi Wang
Faculty of Finance, City University of Macau, Taipa, Macao SAR of China