Artificial intelligence is being positioned as a decisive climate tool: it will find efficiencies, model risk, orchestrate grids, and stretch material budgets. Some of this is real. But the framing conceals the actual constraint. Emissions curves do not turn because a model becomes more accurate; they turn because institutions choose different investments, tax different activities, and price different externalities. The essay argues that treating AI as a climate solution — rather than a climate instrument — misidentifies the problem, and by doing so risks displacing the political and institutional decisions that emissions reduction actually requires.
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Recent essays
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The strategic manipulation of what societies know, doubt, trust, or ignore — treated as an instrument rather than a side-effect.
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What does the net effect of a given AI system look like once its downstream gains and its infrastructure costs are booked against the same accounting boundary?
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Arda Öztaşkın
Writer · AI, climate, human judgment
Turkish writer and columnist. Author of three books on AI, climate, and the loneliness economy. This is the English edition of an independent publication — long-form essays, original concepts, and a running reading of the reports that matter.
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The monthly dispatch
One essay-length dispatch a month: a new concept, a claim worth doubting, and the reports worth your time.