AI for climate: from technological solutions to relational accountability

Despite the promise of "AI-for-climate" to catalyze climate research and action, dominant approaches risk reproducing the same cultural patterns that have fueled ecological breakdown and its unevenly distributed harms. These patterns include human exceptionalism, technosolutionism, and epistemic universalism. By tracing these patterns, this comment situates AI-for-climate within a broader web of extractive planetary relations, examining its potential to either reinforce those relations or contribute to their repair. In doing so, it invites reflection on the ethical and epistemological challenges of co-developing AI systems that are accountable to the diverse human communities, species, and generations who share our entangled Earth.

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Publication Details

Journal
npj Climate Action
Published
2026-04-16
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-026-00376-0
Primary Topic
Climate Change and Geoengineering
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

AI for climate: from technological solutions to relational accountability

Sharon Stein
npj Climate Action
Climate Change and Geoengineering
article

AI for climate: from technological solutions to relational accountability

Sharon Stein
article en

Abstract

Despite the promise of "AI-for-climate" to catalyze climate research and action, dominant approaches risk reproducing the same cultural patterns that have fueled ecological breakdown and its unevenly distributed harms. These patterns include human exceptionalism, technosolutionism, and epistemic universalism. By tracing these patterns, this comment situates AI-for-climate within a broader web of extractive planetary relations, examining its potential to either reinforce those relations or contribute to their repair. In doing so, it invites reflection on the ethical and epistemological challenges of co-developing AI systems that are accountable to the diverse human communities, species, and generations who share our entangled Earth.

npj Climate ActionVol. 5(1)
University of British Columbia (CA)
Killam Trusts, University of British Columbia, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 17%
Climate Change and Geoengineering
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AI for climate: from technological solutions to relational accountability — Sharon Stein · npj Climate Action (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS