Power, Policy, and the Planet: Climate Change, AI, and the Future of Fiscal Policy

Event at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics

Robert Rubin joins Jason Furman and Joseph Aldy, professors at Harvard Kennedy School, for a wide-ranging discussion at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. The three speakers cover environmental and technological challenges and consider ways in which public policy could address them. At the center of the conversation are two subjects: climate change and the advance of artificial intelligence. These topics intersect, since the data centers used for AI compute require large amounts of power, raising questions about how the growth of AI could impact carbon emissions and the clean energy transition.

Rubin and his fellow panelists discuss the massive changes that both climate change and artificial intelligence stand to bring for the U.S. and global economies. Although the magnitude of these effects will continue to be debated, the discussion clarifies how both climate and AI will profoundly affect us. Rubin focuses on the need for government leaders to consider these issues with intellectual integrity to chart a sound course for the future.