7 February 2024 | The 7th edition of The Apolitical View by Apolitical CEO and Co-Founder Robyn Scott. Subcribe to the newsletter

In this week's edition:

  • The disinformation wars' new battlefront
  • The World Government Summit
  • India’s juggernaut economy

AI meets climate change: salvation, degeneration, or a messy mix

The salvation story: At Apolitical we do a lot of work on AI and climate change, two systemic forces reshaping societies and economies around the globe. Lately, I’ve become increasingly optimistic about the collision of these two tidal waves: AI could help design new sustainable materials, dramatically increase the efficiency of electricity grids and help farmers in drought-stricken regions plant, harvest and sell more effectively — to name just a few of the countless promising applications.

The degeneration story: But last week, in a conversation with a worried leader of one of the world’s most important local government organisations, I heard a darker story: AI-fuelled climate disinformation. The risk of election disinformation, weaponised by AI, is grabbing the headlines right now. The AI climate disinformation niche is less flashy but it’s powerful and insidious — causing communities and cities to get bogged down in a quagmire of accusations, clarifications and acrimony which can take years to resolve, while critical action is delayed. The Stockholm Resilience Institute describes AI-fuelled disinformation and climate as a “perfect storm”.

Climate disinformation was bad even before generative AI. In a 2022 YouGov survey, 34% of Australians, 40% of Brazilians, 57% of Indians and 39% of US citizens reported believing that natural gas is a climate-friendly energy source. By the time of a 2023 Reuters Institute poll, 27% of people said they “think they saw false or misleading information” about climate change in the last week.

Decorative image of lightning cloud with mathematical equations

A dive into specific examples is sobering. US citizens, for example, systematically underestimate public support for bold climate policies, thus wrongly assuming that the vocal minority that dismisses climate change is representative of a larger public position.

Brazil and Chile both suffered terrible climate-fueled natural disasters in 2023, accompanied by a slew of disinformation. False narratives spread that southern Brazil’s cyclone floods were caused by people opening dam gates, flooding the village below. Social media posts claimed that last year’s wildfires in Chile were deliberately started to make way for renewable energy projects. With tragic fires recurring in Chile just this week, the phenomenon is likely to be repeating itself as you read this.

Think you’re immune? Even academics get misled. In a striking example of just how hard disinformation is to combat, a study in Nature showed that 10,000 academic papers were retracted in 2023 alone – a staggering leap from 4,000 in 2022. The fact that academic reviewers and publications, representing a comparative bastion of trust and quality, can fall victim to disinformation shows starkly the challenge for the average citizen browsing social media.

Bright spots: Governments are starting to take the issue more seriously, even if much of the leadership on climate disinformation has come from civil society or plucky startups to date (see ClimateGPT). The EU has updated its Code of Practice on Disinformation to incorporate lessons learned from Covid-19. In June 2023, the UK’s Government Chief Scientific Adviser held a roundtable on climate disinformation to scope the problem.

Pressure to self-regulate has seen most tech platforms adopt policies (of varying stringency) to manage climate disinformation. But this marking-your-own-exams approach is unlikely to curtail the algal blooms of disinformation. Better and bolder solutions will be needed for that, and any government that cares about climate action needs to be on high alert.

Robyn Scott

Apolitical CEO & Co-Founder

My recommendations

  • For those looking for examples of how generative AI is being used by governments, we wrote up three case studies from Canada, Portugal and Japan on how public servants are using GPT-based technologies in our new report Transforming Public Sector Services with Generative AI

  • I’m also enjoying the podcast How do you use ChatGPT? in which the host interviews smart people about how it's working for them.

In our diary this week

The annual World Government Summit takes place next week in Dubai. My Apolitical co-founder, Lisa Witter, and I will both be attending and speaking so this week is full of preparation. I’m looking forward to speaking in a closed-door ministerial roundtable on the critical role of people and skills in building future-facing governments, and another on the future of education. Lisa will be hosting a panel on inclusive governance and engaging citizens in decision-making with New York Senator Kevin Thomas and Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallup. If you’re attending and would like to meet up, please get in touch.

And finally...

In a powerful reminder of the juggernaut that India is set to become, the Ministry of Finance released The Indian Economy: A Review last week. The report projects – albeit perhaps optimistically – 7% growth to make India the world’s third-largest economy in just three years, with a projected GDP of US$5 trillion. Improved digital public infrastructure and the move to online, paperless and cashless digital access for various public services are listed as a few of India’s big recent achievements, and upskilling and learning outcomes are some of the (many) future reforms listed as priorities.

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