India proves emerging economies need not follow carbon intensive path, says environment minister

Kant said that the world is living in an era which is going to see the biggest rise of productivity ever because of data machine learning and artificial intelligence

• India balances climate responsibility with development goals.
• AI can help combat climate change if used responsibly.
• Book explores AI's role in climate action challenges and opportunities.

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India has consistently demonstrated that climate responsibility and development ambition can go hand in hand and its approach has been guided by equity, scale, and action, not rhetoric, said Bhupender Yadav, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on February 24.

“India has shown that emerging economies do not have to follow the carbon intensive pathways of the past to achieve prospect. India has taken bold and credible steps across the climate spectrum,” Yadav said at the launch of book titled “Smarter Than the Storm: Championing the AI–Climate Nexus for a Truly Sustainable Future” authored by Amitabh Kant, former CEO of Niti Aayog and Siddharth Sinha, CEO of Greenko Group.

The book advances one central argument that climate change is a threat multiplier across food, energy, growth, and stability, while artificial intelligence, if designed and governed responsibly, can act as a force multiplier to combat that threat.

The book also confronts AI’s own challenges, including energy intensity, data concentration, and sovereignty concerns, and reframes them as opportunities through green data centres, open and sovereign AI models, and digital public infrastructure for climate action.

“The energy intensity of data centres, the concentration of data, at the risk of technological dependence, are some issues. Rather than ignoring these, the book reaffirms them as opportunities, through being data centres, open and solid AI models, and digital public infrastructure for climate energy,” Yadav said.

He also noted that Artificial intelligence has emerged as a powerful general purpose technology, having the potential to reshape the economies, governance, and development.

Kant said that the world is living in an era which is going to see the biggest rise of productivity ever because of data machine learning and artificial intelligence. “And this technology is going to be a general-purpose technology which will transform every single sector of the economy,” he said.

Kant highlighted that the battle of tomorrow will be won by those who use goods, sophisticated software, with less energy, but it will also be won by those who use energy, computing power, and artificial intelligence, to really make a make tomorrow a better word for climate.