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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/22\/climate\/climate-change-artificial-intelligence-global-threat.html?emc=edit_nn_20260922&nl=the-morning&segment_id=226865",
    "parsed_content": "The Big Threat Has Been Climate Change. Now Comes A.I.Both are human-caused, both are frightening, and one of them has raced to the forefront of the global conversation.A.I. is \u201ceating up all our attention,\u201d a professor of environmental politics said recently. Construction of an A.I. data center in Texas last month.Credit...Brandon Bell\/Getty ImagesThe Big Threat Has Been Climate Change. Now Comes A.I.Both are human-caused, both are frightening, and one of them has raced to the forefront of the global conversation.A.I. is \u201ceating up all our attention,\u201d a professor of environmental politics said recently. Construction of an A.I. data center in Texas last month.Credit...Brandon Bell\/Getty ImagesSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTListen \u00b7 10:03 min Share full articleBy Chico HarlanSept. 22, 2026Updated 8:20 a.m. ETNew warnings that humans are flirting with out-of-control artificial intelligence raise an uneasy question: has A.I. surpassed climate change as one of humanity\u2019s gravest risks?Though the danger of the technology is hard to assess, the worst-case scenario \u2014 human extinction \u2014 makes other earthly concerns seem small.Yes, climate change is creating dangerously hot conditions, fueling superstorms and killing crops, and it may lead to planetary upheaval. But that only matters if our civilization is still recognizable.\u201cIn terms of things that could be the end of humanity, I think A.I. is a bigger risk,\u201d said Toby Ord, a researcher at Oxford University and author of \u201cThe Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAll of this leaves climate activists competing for a finite pool of political consideration. As diplomats and world leaders gather at the United Nations this week to grapple with the planet\u2019s most pressing problems, some worry that global warming could be overlooked even as it worsens.When President Xi Jinping of China meets in Washington on Wednesday with President Trump, the leaders of the countries that produce the most greenhouse gases are expected to discuss A.I. safety, among other issues. Climate change, which Mr. Trump dismisses as a \u201ccon job\u201d, is unlikely to be on the agenda.Leah Stokes, a professor of environmental politics at University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote last week that A.I. was \u201ceating up all our attention,\u201d and argued that climate change posed the more concrete danger, citing deadly heat waves in Europe this summer and a horrific glacier collapse last month in Nepal.\u201cUnlike A.I., climate change\u2019s existential threat is not hypothetical. It is killing people now,\u201d Dr. Stokes wrote. \u201cIt also feels like a lot of people have conveniently forgotten about the urgency of solving this problem.\u201dHumans are notoriously poor at assessing dangers, and in the case of artificial intelligence, the risks are largely speculative at this point. Even the boldest A.I. extinction predictions often say little about how the disaster could unfold. Would the end come in the form of an A.I.-engineered superbug, or the launch of nuclear weapons? The destruction of human society could also unfold more slowly, with a rogue takeover of infrastructure as humans go hungry and lose access to medicine.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cThere are gradual A.I. catastrophe scenarios,\u201d said Seth Baum, the executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. \u201cWe continue to automate more and more over time. And we end up with something that is fully automated. And something goes wrong.\u201dImageFor now, the risks from global warming are less hypothetical than from artificial intelligence. A helicopter dropping water on a Los Angeles wildfire this month.Credit...Apu Gomes\/Getty ImagesThe predictions stem from the sense that humans are creating a potentially untamable entity, one that could gain the ability to self-improve and become smarter and faster than us in every meaningful way. The solutions to thwart all this? Not yet in place.Climate change, on the other hand, is full of knowns. The science linking fossil fuel emissions and global temperature rise is long-established and irrefutable. The solutions to help curb emissions, such as solar energy and electric vehicles, are proven and abundant. At the global level, the annual conferences aimed at averting the crisis have become a fixture on the international calendar, replete with scientific and political jargon along with diplomatic wrangling over long-term action plans.That may make them feel more bureaucratic than existential \u2014 but they\u2019ve proven meaningful. Global temperatures had once been projected to rise 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) beyond preindustrial levels. Now, scientists say warming is on track for 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), based on the current policies and trends.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTStill, that\u2019s well beyond the level that nations said would be tenable.The consequences of climate change are showing up in extreme bursts such as wildfires, heat waves, floods. At the same time, it is also building relatively slowly, in ways that test the attention span. Since fully landing on the world\u2019s radar a generation ago, the issue has sparked moments of collective unity, as well as backlash, despair and fatigue.\u201cThings that happen gradually, we just sort of normalize them and get used to them,\u201d Dr. Baum said. \u201cOrdinary people don\u2019t want this to be the thing they\u2019re always thinking about.\u201dImageA diesel-fuel spill at an A.I. data center in Secaucus, N.J., this month.Credit...Spencer Platt\/Getty ImagesHuman-caused headachesAs threats to humanity, A.I. and climate change have some notable links.In both cases, the risks stem from man-made pursuits, whether it\u2019s the development of advanced computer \u201cfrontier models,\u201d or the burning of fossil fuels that powers the modern global economy. And in both cases giant companies (trillion-dollar tech firms, or globe-spanning energy giants) hold outsize influence over the course of history.President Trump has discounted warnings about A.I., saying on social media recently that they come from the \u201csame people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by \u2018Climate Change.\u2019\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTA.I. has the potential to be a tool in the fight against climate change. It could design more sophisticated warning systems for disasters, for example, or dream up innovations that ease global water shortages. Already, its systems are being used to help fortify the low-lying Maldives and regrow shoreline.But in the short-term, at least, A.I. is making it more difficult to cut greenhouse gas emissions. That\u2019s because it is increasing energy needs, with electricity consumption from A.I. data centers surging 50 percent last year, according to the International Energy Agency. The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health said that by 2030, A.I. data centers would use nearly three times the electricity of Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh combined, countries home to some 650 million people.ImageThe melting Rh\u00f4ne Glacier in the Swiss Alps this summer.Credit...Fabrice Coffrini\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty ImagesTech companies are becoming major energy buyers, and backing both renewable and fossil fuel projects. In a speech on Monday, Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate chief, called the A.I. industry \u201cenergy guzzling\u201d and said it needs to \u201crespect science and start aligning with global climate efforts \u2014 urgently.\u201dOn Monday the Turkish environment minister, Murat Kurum, who will preside over this year\u2019s international climate conference in November, said the agenda will include A.I.\u2019s \u201cgrowing energy consumption.\u201d He added that \u201ca warming world, a global energy system in disarray, and growing fears of the rise of A.I. all demand action.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSix years ago, Google had put forth a plan to operate on carbon-free energy by 2030. Google\u2019s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, called it a \u201csustainability moonshot,\u201d and referenced the fact that several years earlier his hometown in India, Chennai, had been submerged by floodwaters, which made \u201cthe impacts of climate change feel much closer to home.\u201dBut the A.I. race has changed the priorities.Google\u2019s emissions continue to rise. Same for Microsoft, which said it would be carbon-negative by 2030.Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, last year published a 5,000-word essay arguing that climate change would \u201cnot lead to humanity\u2019s demise.\u201d His conclusion, made after years of funding climate causes, reflected a much-contested conclusion that even as the planet warms, people would be able to \u201clive and thrive in most places on earth.\u201dThen, last month, Mr. Gates published another lengthy essay. It was about the risks of A.I.ImageLast year Bill Gates criticized the \u201cdoomsday outlook\u201d around climate change. More recently, he warned of A.I. risks. Mr. Gates at a 2025 event.Credit...Caitlin Ochs\/ReutersShared trait: unpredictabilityBut many scientists say it\u2019s a mistake to assume that climate change will proceed predictably, or in a way that countries can manage. Some say that over the past decade, the planet\u2019s systems have proven more sensitive to incremental warming than anticipated. And plenty more warming is still to come.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe world is losing the beauty of coral reefs, and the fish that call them home, and the economies based on those fish. Plants and trees are withering under tougher conditions, potentially cutting back one of the natural ways that the earth absorbs carbon dioxide. Melting Arctic sea ice is opening up tracts of dark, heat-absorbing water, and further juicing temperature gains. And in the future, changing ocean conditions could weaken or shut down little-considered circulation systems that are vital to maintaining living conditions in some parts of the world.The risks of feedback loops, and the complexity of the earth\u2019s system, is precisely why it\u2019s dangerous to make assumptions about how the world will look, and how livable it will be, said Katherine Richardson, a University of Copenhagen professor who has studied planetary boundaries.She said that almost all of human progress \u2014 through the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Renaissance \u2014 has occurred with temperatures remaining in a narrow bound. \u201cWe do not know for certain that we can thrive\u201d in a world that is 2 or 3 degrees Celsius warmer, she said. In fact, she added, we don\u2019t yet know what such a world might look like.To describe the uncertainties of climate change, she used some of the same language used in warnings about A.I.\u201cWe can lose control of this process,\u201d she said.From the commentsChico HarlanGlobal Climate CorrespondentFor at least a decade, maybe more, climate change has been talked about as the world\u2019s ultimate threat. \u201cThe defining issue of our time,\u201d United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called it. But now comes a new threat. One that\u2019s far less known, and understandably grabbing much of the attention.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-22T09:02:26+00:00",
    "author_name": "Chico Harlan",
    "site_name": "The New York Times",
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    "ai_headline": "The Big Threat Has Been Climate Change. Now Comes A.I.",
    "ai_simplified_title": "AI Surpasses Climate Change as Global Threat in 2026",
    "ai_excerpt": "A.I. is increasingly seen as a major existential threat, potentially overshadowing climate change in global attention and political discourse. Experts debate which poses a greater risk to humanity, with A.I.'s energy consumption also impacting climate efforts.",
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