AI and Intergenerational Climate Justice

Climate change is an unsettling intergenerational justice issue. It deserves our undivided and full attention. Youth in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), future generations, coral reefs, wetlands, mangroves, and other ecosystems with no possibility of protecting their future well-being must tote the full burden of the actions of today’s adults.

With every inaction the probability distribution changes. We already reside inside the infosphere. Its ubiquity is relative to our willingness to accept the shrinking nature of the human/machine divide. AI is an unprecedented form of agency, and its use can benefit humanity and the earth.

Gradually we are accepting that the very fabric of reality is fast becoming digital. A new digital ontology is unfolding as data sets are reconfigured and reorganized. This shift is confusing as the virtual becomes partly real and the real becomes partly virtual. We can no longer privilege the natural or the untouched. All forms of behaviour and varieties of existence including those based on synthetic, hybrid, artificial and engineered artefacts must be valued.

The task today is to create an ethical framework that treats the infosphere as an unfamiliar environment worthy of our moral attention. It requires a change in how we see ourselves. We must reconcile ourselves to the idea that we no longer live in the world made by Martha Graham, Rudranath Capildeo, Igor Stravinsky, Ellie Mannette, Albert Einstein, Beryl McBurnie, Charles Darwin, Joseph Lennox Pawan, and Nelson Mandela. That world, the modern world, is a worn-out thing of the past.

Our post-truth world has not yet discovered how to define itself in terms of what it is, but only in terms of what it has just-now-ceased to be. This crisis will lead eventually to a theology of disbelief and an epistemology of doubt. These two streams flow organically from the inflexible dichotomies modernity has created between public and private, secular and sacred, fact and imagination.

Previous revolutions in wealth creation, led to transformations in our architectural, artistic, political and social structures. Whether understood in terms of wealth creation or reconceptualization of ourselves, we will be in serious jeopardy if we fail to take seriously that a few in select citadels are building new environments that will be inhabited by future generations everywhere.

Climate change is the largest threat facing humanity and AI remains central to the ecological transition. AI has been used to forecast global mean temperature changes and to predict climatic and oceanic phenomena. AI has been used to predict tropical instability waves, cloud systems, and atmospheric rivers.

AI has been used to improve and expedite existing forecasting and prediction systems. AI has also been used to predict heavy rainfall damage and extreme weather events. AI assemblages can automatically label climate modelling data and separate noise from signals in climate observations. These opportunities are all epistemological.

The second opportunity that AI offers earth sciences is ethical. In the fight against global warming, AI can be used to help deliver greener solutions and optimize energy generation. Using AI for environmental applications could boost global GDP by between 3.1 to 4.4 per cent by aiming to reduce emissions from 1.5 to 4 per cent by 2030.

AI is already helping governments understand industrial pollution, energy efficiency in industry, the carbon footprint of concrete used in construction, and energy efficiency in shipping. Other projects have explored the use of AI in electrical grid management, forecasting building energy consumption, and predicting carbon emissions based on present trends along with interventionist policies like carbon tax or carbon trading systems.

A useful idea is the establishment of a Digital Twin Model for LAC that can embrace Multi-Head Latent Attention (MLA) and Mixture of Experts (MOE) architecture. Regional Universities can collaborate on initiatives and training programmes dedicated to unlocking the potential of AI for climate. The agenda can be shaped to ensure that projects have both geographic and disciplinary breadth and relevance to Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

E-nvironmentalism is a foresight exercise. Long-term time horizons in planning must be adopted and this must take into account the delayed consequences of actions. This needs a new paradigm of education. But a shift in philosophy alone will take us nowhere. It requires a change in perspective that has foundations in a new ontology that is being created automatically from large datasets. Moreover, this understanding of being must now be translated into politics.

Using AI can change the way we perceive ourselves and what we consider worthy of our care and respect. An e-environmental ethics for LAC can help shape our roles concerning the earth and can be critical in shaping an alliance between our natural and online lives.

In a webinar on Monday, February 17, 2025, the World Bank painted a bleak picture of Caribbean education and a roadmap for change. Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Education Global Practice highlighted insufficient investment in school infrastructure, the inability to handle extreme climate events, poor internet access, and unequal access to digital devices as critical variables that impact students’ opportunities. However, this crisis is not just affecting students in schools today. It is a watershed that is intergenerational.