Finally, this week on Thursday, June 26, the Climate-Energy Summit Seoul (CESS 2025) will officially open its doors. Co-hosted by the Climate Change Center and EToday, this year’s summit is held under the theme 🤖"In the Era of Climate Crisis, Will AI Open a New World of Hope or Peril?". It will examine both the ✨potential and 💥risks that AI technologies bring to climate action and explore the 📍pathways that citizens and society must thoughtfully choose. 🙌
Our final highlight is the topic: “In the Age of AI, Our Choices as Climate Citizens⚖️.” Artificial intelligence is now deeply embedded in our daily lives and contributes positively in various climate-related areas. However, if not designed responsibly and operated transparently, AI can become a vehicle for spreading climate-related mis/disinformation, eroding public trust and consensus for action.
According to the Climate Action Against Disinformation 2024 report, about 35% of climate misinformation was found to be automatically generated by AI and rapidly amplified through 📱social media algorithms.🤔 This reality shows that 🚨we can no longer remain passive consumers of technology. The key lies in ⚠️citizens’ critical information literacy, stronger platform accountability, and the restoration of trust in the media.
At CESS 2025, 👩🦰Associate Professor Novi Kurnia from Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia, will address “Countering Climate Change Mis/disinformation” from a Global South perspective. She will share insights and concrete examples of how platforms and AI algorithms can worsen 😢“climate information inequality” and how local communities can build 💪information literacy in practice.
Additionally, 👩🏻Minjung Jin, Senior Researcher at the Korea Press Foundation, will discuss “The Role of Journalism and the Importance of Fact-Checking in the Climate Crisis Era” She will propose how media outlets can adopt and collaborate on AI-powered fact-checking systems 💡 to deliver reliable climate information, and how citizens can actively engage in this process. 𖡎
In the end, 👩🏻💻👨🏻💻 being a climate citizen in the AI era means going beyond being a passive consumer of information to becoming a vigilant 👀watchdog, an engaged 🤝participant, and a responsible 👨💻co-creator of trustworthy content. We all need the power to ✅verify facts for ourselves and 🕊️connect local and global voices without being swayed by false information.
This week, CESS 2025 will go beyond debating the promises and risks of technology to discuss 🍀how civil society can build trustworthy climate governance 🍀 together. As climate citizens living in the age of AI, we invite you to be part of this essential conversation. A forum for dialogue on climate, technology, and a sustainable future awaits you! ☺️
