By Manav Subodh
A few weeks ago, millions of us happily “ghiblified” our selfies using AI, turning them into dreamy animations straight out of a Miyazaki film. But the magic faded quickly when reports revealed the environmental cost behind each generated image. Even our casual “thank you” to an AI chatbot burns energy. Suddenly, AI didn’t seem so invisible or innocent.
Every digital interaction leaves a carbon footprint. In a country racing toward net-zero, this raises a question few are asking: What does it mean to be a responsible digital citizen? And I’m not just talking about a future worker in the burgeoning green economy, but a citizen who understands that even digital joy rides come with ecological receipts.
India is producing cutting-edge coders. It is also producing world-class climate scientists. But between the engineers powering AI and the experts fighting climate change lies a critical void: the Green-AI generalist. This is the missing middle; the kind of interdisciplinary talent who can decode machine learning models and understand how to reduce their energy draw. The data scientist who considers carbon budgets. The sustainability expert who knows what an algorithm actually does. The product manager who can balance tech ambition with ecological wisdom. Or maybe it’s just you and me; everyday citizens using AI, but doing so responsibly.
Globally, this hybrid is already emerging. Columbia University’s Climate School offers AI-integrated sustainability education. NTU Singapore’s Sustainable AI programme trains engineers to design low-emission tech systems. The World Economic Forum predicts demand for such roles will outpace core software engineering in green sectors by 2030.
But still, in India, progress remains uneven. According to the Skills Council for Green Jobs, fewer than 2% of India’s green skilling programmes currently include any AI training (and most AI curriculums don’t touch sustainability). This is a missed opportunity. Because without these bridge-builders, we risk a future where we’re deploying high-powered tech to fight climate change, while ironically deepening the crisis with every click and every development of an AI tool.
It’s time we stop treating AI and climate action as two separate worlds because they’re not. Every line of code has a carbon consequence. Every green ambition needs digital muscle. And without people who can fluently navigate both, we’re setting ourselves up for elegant solutions that fail in execution and backfire. India needs green-AI generalists who can ask smarter questions, build cleaner systems, and anticipate the unintended consequences of our tech-driven climate dreams.
The writer is founder, 1M1B (one million for one billion), a UN-accredited skilling NGO
