The strategic report “AI and Climate Change: The Global South Facing the New Geopolitics of Innovation”, produced by the Green Screen Climate Justice and Digital Rights Coalition, with support from the Plataforma CIPÓ, is now available for download. The text is authored by Lori Regattieri, advisor to the coalition.
Starting from the observation that artificial intelligence (AI) and the energy transition are today the two main drivers of global industrial reconfiguration, the document argues that these processes cannot be treated as parallel tracks. On the contrary, their infrastructures, value chains, and regulatory regimes already overlap, with profound effects on economic sovereignty, technological innovation, and climate justice.
In this regard, the report proposes a critical reading of the ongoing technological race, warning of the risks that decarbonization may be accompanied by new forms of digital dependency, financialization of nature, and computational asymmetries. The analysis links the transformation of the energy matrix with the intensification of mineral extraction, the advance of surveillance technologies in Global South territories, and the concentration of computational power by major platforms.
Brazil and the BRICS+ countries are positioned as key actors in the dispute for a new model of development and innovation, not merely as providers of raw materials for the transition, but as formulators of alternatives that combine digital sovereignty, energy autonomy, fair climate agreements, and peoples’ self-determination.
The report also highlights the urgency of integrating AI governance into multilateral commitments on climate and biodiversity, especially in the context of COP30, to be held in Belém.
About the coalition
The Green Screen Climate Justice and Digital Rights Coalition is an international alliance of funders, researchers, and activists dedicated to strategically integrating the agendas of climate justice, digital transition, and informational sovereignty.
The coalition operates in the face of an institutional and analytical gap that still separates the fields of digital rights and environmental justice, proposing integrated approaches that expose the structural role of technological infrastructures in dynamics of power, risk, and distribution.
In this effort, Green Screen seeks to guide philanthropic action and the work of social movements so that the geopolitical implications of digitalization are incorporated from the outset into discussions on climate, human rights, and development models.
The report consolidates this proposal by affirming that the paths of technological innovation are not neutral: they shape resource governance, produce new forms of asymmetry, and directly affect equity in a just energy transition. For the coalition, addressing these challenges requires anticipatory strategies, capable of treating digital transformation and the climate emergency as inseparable dimensions of the same civilizational repositioning.
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