UNESCO, the Government of Brazil and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will formally launch the Artificial Intelligence Climate Institute (AICI) on 16 November. The ceremony is scheduled for 15:15 to 16:15 at the Brazil Pavilion during COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, and will focus on presenting the 2026–2027 workplan, priority activities and partnership opportunities for other countries.
The institute was announced at COP30 in Belém, where its vision was unveiled on 11 November 2025. Since then, the partners have set out a two-year operational roadmap focused on country-led capacity building. On 4 August 2026, an inaugural workshop in Manaus, titled “Infrastructure, Intelligence and Impact: the Pathway to a Sustainable Future”, brought together regional regulators, digital policymakers and multilateral development banks to finalise the institute's operational structure.
The proposal starts from a two-sided diagnosis. On one hand, artificial intelligence can help forecast extreme weather, track deforestation and optimise freshwater resources. On the other, countries in the Global South, the most vulnerable to climate disruption, face structural barriers: restricted computing capacity, fragmented data governance and severe skills gaps. At the same time, the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure itself carries a significant carbon, energy and water footprint.
That is where the division of roles comes in. Anatel, Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency, institutionally hosts the institute's secretariat within its Green Digital Action Hub in Brasília, steering regional cooperation. The ITU contributes technical expertise in telecommunications and digital infrastructure, with synergies with the ITU Academy and the AI Skills Coalition. UNESCO grounds the curriculum and projects in its 2021 Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and its Open Science framework.
According to UNESCO, a joint UNESCO–UCL study showed that task-specific models and optimised prompts can reduce AI energy consumption by up to 90%. The figure is presented as a research finding, not as a guarantee for every use, and it helps explain the institute's emphasis on resource-efficient solutions rather than simply larger models.
The institute also operationalises Objective 4 of the COP29 Declaration on Green Digital Action, which covers expanding digital inclusion, literacy and targeted skills development for climate resilience. The launch panel is set to feature Alexandre Freire, commissioner and vice-president of Anatel; Pedro Ivo Ferraz da Silva, a diplomat at Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and chair of the UNFCCC Technology Executive Committee; Guilherme Canela, a UNESCO director; and Tomas Lamanauskas, ITU deputy secretary-general. The agenda also includes gauging interest from ASEAN countries in joint activities and interregional exchanges.
In practice, AICI aims to help developing countries design, deploy and govern their own climate AI solutions, rather than relying only on external software and infrastructure. The 16 November launch marks the move from announcement to operation — and the 2026–2027 plan will be the first concrete test of that promise.
Image credit: illustrative photo of an area of felled and burned forest in Apuí, Amazonas, by Bruno Kelly/Amazônia Real, via Wikimedia Commons. The image illustrates the deforestation problem, not the institute itself.
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