Past Event: Frontier Issues in AI and Climate Change: Seizing the Opportunity, Meeting the Challenge

Thu Sep 25, 2025 4:00 p.m.—5:15 p.m.
Research to Impact

This event has passed.

Exploring the promise of AI in fighting climate change.

To join us in the VIP section for this event on Thursday, September 25, 2025, at 4:00 pm, please confirm your attendance by completing this brief form. 

This panel launches from two broad premises: AI is rapidly changing our lives. Climate change represents an existential threat to life on Planet Earth. It will then tackle a series of questions: How do we mobilize the extraordinary capabilities of AI to respond to climate change and deliver a sustainable future more generally? At the same time, how do we address the threats AI poses to a successful response to climate change? What are the leading-edge applications of AI in the climate challenge? What policy interventions might allow us to maximize AI’s upside potential while minimizing the downside risks?

Join leading experts representing cutting-edge thinking from industry, energy systems, academia, climate justice, and the policy arena in a lively give-and-take designed to separate AI hype from reality. 

Location: Tap Room

This session will also be available as a webinar; it is the only session on Thursday, September 25 that can be accessed virtually. Register via Zoom.

Panelists

  • Alexis Abramson

    Dean of the Columbia Climate School and a Professor of Climate

  • Michel Gelobter

    Executive Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Justice

  • Uday Khemka

    Managing Trustee of The Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, Director of The Green AI Learning Network (“GRAIL”)

  • David Sandalow

    Inaugural Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University (SIPA) and Host of the AI, Energy and Climate Podcast

Moderator

  • Dan Esty

    Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University and Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy

About the Panelists

Dan Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University (moderator)

Michel Gelobter, Inaugural Executive Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Justice, will do brief demonstrations of AI tools built at the Center and being used by environmental justice organizations in the US and internationally as well as by environmental scientists.

Uday Khemka, Vice Chair of the Sun Group of companies and a director of the Climate Group (host organization for Climate Week), will discuss emergent Grand Challenges in climate mitigation and adaptation, as developed by three major expert convenings held in 2025.

David Sandalow is the lead author of the recent “Artificial Intelligence for Climate Change Mitigation Roadmap (Second Edition)” and will discuss the roadmap and ways to realize AI’s potential to help respond to climate change.
 

In Partnership With

Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia
Khemka foundation logo