SHADE Newsletter 11th July 2024

Welcome to the seventeenth edition of the SHADE newsletter! 

SHADE is a research hub with a mission to explore issues at the intersection of digital technologies/AI, health and the environment. It is guided by a fundamental question: How should the balance between AI/digital enabled health and planetary health be struck in different areas of the world, and what should be the guiding principles?

The SHADE newsletter comes out every two weeks, bringing you a selection of the latest news, upcoming events, academic publications and podcasts in the SHADE space.

In this newsletter, we highlight the turmoil in corporate carbon accounting. We look at a new digital sustainability tool for researchers, take a sweep through wildfires, dengue spread and extreme heat, check in on a new type of power supply deal, call out (again) how regulation of healthcare tech is not addressing environmental impacts, take a look at digital device lifecycles and much more.  We hope you enjoy it!

Please tell us what you like, what you don’t like and what you think is missing at [email protected].   

Highlight on the turmoil in corporate carbon accounting

• First Microsoft and now Google admit that AI is putting their ‘net zero by 2030’ target at serious risk - Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have climbed nearly 50% since 2019.

• Then Google ends its mass purchase of carbon offsets and its associated claim to be carbon neutral. It now intends to switch from emissions avoidance offsets to carbon removal credits. (Confused? For a quick recap on carbon offsets and carbon removal credits see here and here). However, despite this generally well received move, many are questioning Google’s ability to reach net zero by 2030, still its intended target.

• All this is happening as trouble brews at the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), the leading authority on how the corporate world should set its climate targets to keep them in line with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The row over the SBTi guidance on the use of carbon credits has deepened as its CEO resigns.

• Hear more on the case for carbon credits, and on what’s happening in carbon removal in “what we’re listening to” below.

News

• A digital sustainability certification scheme launches for researchers and institutions wanting to tackle the environmental impacts of their computing: Check out Green DiSC and enrol (see also ‘Opportunities’ below).

• The latest in wearable health tech - ultrasound - is on its way, with the associated AI powered analysis and ‘vast data streams’ this involves. Regulatory pathways for this technology are still being worked on. However, the environmental impacts of this data and AI heavy tech, with its anticipated widespread adoption, don’t feature in perceived regulatory gaps.

• As wildfires ravage California and the Arctic Circle, a recently published study links all-cause and respiratory mortality to short term exposure to wildfire related ozone.

• As dengue cases hit record levels in the Americas and Florida Keys health officials issue a dengue fever alert and the first locally acquired dengue case this year is detected in France, this paper from the Science of the Total Environment journal analyses data from 166 countries over 45 years to show the rising economic costs of invasive Aedes mosquitoes and Aedes-borne diseases.

• Data Centre Dynamics reports on Big Tech’s adoption of a new type of power supply deal, Clean Transition Tariffs (CTTs) and how these could work better than Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in accelerating the clean energy transition.

• AINow challenges Europe’s industrial policy on AI.

• As President Biden proposes a new rule to protect American workers from extreme heat and Dialogue Earth reports on how climate change is affecting workers in Latin America, the urgent need for a global early warning system (EWS) for heat is highlighted in this paper from PLOS Climate, which also puts forward its vision for making such an EWS successful.

What we’re listening to

• This episode from the Carbonsations podcast puts the case for the Voluntary Carbon Market (carbon offsets and other market tools, such as renewable energy credits).

• The latest episode from Bloomberg’s Zero podcast looks at the growth of carbon removal.

What we’re reading

• Climate Change and artificial intelligence in healthcare: Review and recommendations towards a sustainable future. From a normative perspective in radiology and diagnostic imaging, this paper delves into the good and the bad of AI in healthcare, and how the balance can be tilted in the direction of the good. It doesn’t consider rebound effects.

• An editorial from Science in One Health advocating for the use of AI to handle the complexity and consequent scale of data and interrelationships inherent in a One Health response to climate change’s impact on communicable diseases.

• What does a climate resilient healthcare facility (HCF) look like in LMICs? This is the question asked in this scoping review, which presents a series of case studies and identifies gaps and challenges in implementing climate resilient HCFs. Gaps exist around data (for example on local climate sensitive diseases), and technical expertise (for example on implementing disease surveillance and early warning systems).

• A study estimating temperature related neonatal deaths attributable to climate change in 29 low- and middle-income countries.

• Apple’s ‘Longevity by Design’ white paper receives broadly positive reviews, although some point out its evidence is confined to the Apple sphere, and does not take into account the impact Apple’s decisions make in the real world.

• Two more pieces on the lifecycles of digital devices, from different perspectives: Firstly, the US Public Interest Research Group highlights how extending the lifetime of digital devices and recycling them at end of life can avoid the ‘need’ for deep sea mining, with all the environmental risks it brings. Secondly, Untangling Cables: A Case Study of the Life and Afterlife of Digital Devices in Academic Research examines academia’s record in digital device lifecycles.

• Uncovering and Addressing the secret water footprint of AI models. This paper calls for a holistic approach to address the carbon and water footprint of AI.

Events

• The inaugural Climate and Health Africa Conference (CHAC) 2024 is on from the 29th to the 31st October in Harare, Zimbabwe. The submission deadline for abstracts and scholarship applications is August 2nd and the registration deadline is September 20th.

• Rethinking the Inevitability of AI is happening July 18th hosted by the University of Virginia. Register for the online conference.

• The annual conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (IEEE) is happening in Santiago, Chile from August 25th to 28th.

• The Global Digital Health Forum 2024 is happening in Nairobi, Kenya and online between 4th and 6th December. It has extended its submission deadline for abstract ideas to 11.59pm EDT on July 14th.

Opportunities

• Do you have a case study on addressing the impacts of climate-induced loss and damage on children? It so, consider submitting it to help guide the Loss and Damage Fund board. Submission deadline is July 26th.

• Enrol your research group or institution on the Green DiSC certification scheme here.

• The 2025/2026 Harkness Fellowships are now open for applications from individuals from the UK. Deadline for applications is 1st November.

• The Digital Health and Climate Group (part of Digital Health and Interoperability Working Group) invites you to take its survey and consider joining. Gabby Samuel, one of the SHADE directors, is a co-chair of the group.

And finally, a critical piece from e-flux Architecture on carbon offsetting.

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