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Presenting Branch Magazine: Issue #6 Green Screen
Proud to launch ‘Branch Magazine: Issue #6 Green Screen’, that aims to amplify voices from feminist, decolonial and …
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Report Launch - AI and Climate Change: The Global South Facing the New Geopolitics of Innovation
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Authors: Maya Richman
We are happy to share this strategic report–AI and Climate Change: The Global South Facing the New Geopolitics of Innovation–written by Lori Regattieri and jointly launched by CIPÓ and the Green Screen Coalition. The report articulates key connections between energy infrastructures, climate justice and purported AI solutions for the “energy transition”. Their work argues for multilateral, pluriversal, and multisectoral approaches to digital infrastructure and industrial policy. The report names the violence of the “logic of expansion” and the fallacies of transition, which “simultaneously drives energy regimes and artificial intelligence systems”. Lori’s critique on the entanglement of many different social and political issues in Brazil is critical in a time where the technology industry lays the groundwork to be the saviors of COP30 in Belem, Brazil. With COP less than two months away, the report provides a powerful framing for those curious about the industrial dynamics in the region, and the ontological logic underpinning them.
Read the report in English and Portuguese.
There is a preview of the report in Branch Magazine Issue 9: Attunement and a blogpost launching the report by CIPÓ in Portuguese.
What’s in the report?
AI and the Energy Transition: Avoiding New Dependencies places the current narrative of AI as essential to “energy transition” within a wider history of energy crises from the 1970s that reinforced asymmetrical power relations and operates as a tool that “stabilizes and reinforces extractive arrangements”.
Climate Change and Sociotechnical Frictions: Recursive Colonialism and the Architecture of Innovation discusses the political economy of innovation that perpetuates climate emergency by demanding a continuous flow of energy. The chapter redefines the climate crisis as a persistent structure upheld by global administration of energy, territories and bodies.
Brazil, BRICS, and the Global South: Digital Sovereignty and Global Value Chains explores the potential of BRICS+ to reposition themselves as active leaders in AI industrial policy rather than remain “a consumer market and provider of data and raw inputs”. The chapter outlines many of the impediments that prevent the realisation of “regenerative models” of technological innovation.
Heading to COP30: AI Governance and Climate Commitments proposes a redesign of industrial policies and climate finance mechanisms that center technical cooperation, distributed governance, and the valuing of local and ancestral knowledge.
Key Takeaways
The text provides a deep theoretical and historical grounding that can be challenging to read, but ultimately is critical for understanding what narratives and assumptions are undergirding AI and the industries and governments pushing AI as a solution. As Green Screen co-lead, I am often asked to speak about the pitfalls and potentials of technology for climate and environmental justice movements.
Here are three takeaways from the piece:
- The words we use matter. We must be critical of terminology such as “energy transition” that is being used by states and industry in the name of climate and environmental justice. What visions of the world they uphold and how do they proscribe the range of solutions?
- Instead of falling prey to “bothsides-ism”–allowing industry to set the terms of what kind of world we want and the solutions to the problems they created–we should resolutely reject false solutions and redirect attention to actions that address the foundations of the problem.
- We must collectively define, invest in, and uplift examples that center cooperation, distributed governance and the right of refusal.
Moving forward, we are incorporating these ideas as a coalition by carefully evaluating whose visions we are platforming, and by advocating for wider resourcing of people and groups who are targeting the political, economic and historical roots of the crisis. Delaying action due to the promise of planet-saving technologies, built by the industries exacerbating the crisis, will not lead us towards true economic and political transformation.
Partners
About Lori Regattieri
Lori Regattieri (they/she) is a political economy and technology expert focused on AI, finance,and critical infrastructures in relation to just energy transition, environmental justice, and the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities. They design strategies that translate research on digital infrastructures and financial governance of emerging technologies insights for into actionable policymakers, funders, and civil society, while fostering South-South coalitions. Lori Regattieri is a Green Screen Coalition Strategic Advisor, and former Senior Fellow in Trustworthy AI at the Mozilla Foundation. Regattieri holds a PhD in Communication and Culture from UFRJ and received the 2024 Jacques Ellul Award for Outstanding Media Ecology Activism. They created the eco-media platform. More info: http://www.eco-media.com
About Plataforma CIPÓ
Plataforma CIPÓ is a Brazil-based research institute dedicated to promoting international cooperation in support of climate action and sustainable development, with a focus on the priorities and demands of the Global South. CIPÓ develops evidence-based research and fosters dialogues and articulations among multiple stakeholders, with the aim of strengthening public policy and promoting inclusive and effective governance models that connect the local to the global. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, CIPÓ is an independent, non-profit, women-led organization, with a team of researchers, advocates, and communication specialists working across Brazil and internationally. More info: https://plataformacipo.org/en/