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UN Talks End in Rome With Nations Backing $200 Billion a Year Plan to Protect Nature

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Friday, February 28, 2025

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Global negotiators concluded an extended session of the United Nations biodiversity conference, COP16, with key commitments on funds needed and the institutions through which the funds will be channeled to protect the world's biodiversity.The countries agreed on how they would contribute $200 billion a year by 2030 that was committed in principle at an earlier meeting in Montreal. The money includes a plan to raise $20 billion in annual conservation financing for developing nations by 2025, with that number rising to $30 billion annually by 2030, and on details of the Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims at placing 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030. Earlier this week, the countries also agreed to create the Cali Fund, which will create methods for industries that commercially benefit from biodiversity to contribute to its conservation.As the meeting concluded late Wednesday in Rome, participants stood up and applauded the outcomes. “The applause is for all of you. You have done an amazing job,” said the COP16 president, Susana Muhamad of Colombia.COP16’s successful conclusion is the first United Nations meeting in many months which ended on a positive note, as various meetings all through last year related to dealing with the global plastic pollution, climate change and the earlier biodiversity meeting itself failed to reach agreements or left many stakeholders disappointed with the outcomes reached. “These days of work in Rome have demonstrated the commitment of the parties to advance the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Muhamad who is also Colombia’s former environment minister. Muhamad said it was the collective effort of all stakeholders which resulted in the key decisions being agreed upon. “Only by working together can we make Peace with Nature a reality,” she said.The two-day meeting addressed issues that were left unresolved in earlier discussions held in Cali, Colombia in late 2024, focusing on securing funds to meet ambitious targets set in Montreal in 2022. The Cali meetings ended without a quorum as talks ran into overtime and too few delegates remained to guarantee that any decisions made had the backing of all U.N. member states. Linda Krueger, Director of Biodiversity & Infrastructure Policy at The Nature Conservancy, said that in Cali many parties felt that funds created to support biodiversity didn't meet the original goals they had hoped. But in Rome, negotiators were able to agree on a financial “roadmap” that would allow the body to fulfill its original obligations.“At a complicated geopolitical moment, this is an exciting show of progress and international cooperation for nature,” she said. "Technocratic as they might sound, these are the details that will transform ambitions on paper into tangible conservation action on the ground."Oscar Soria, chief executive of The Common Initiative, a think tank, said the decision by the U.N. negotiators marked “a positive step” toward funding biodiversity efforts, setting clear goals and a review process.“However, effectiveness will depend on the implementation of the commitments, the availability of financing and the political will of countries to increase their contributions,” he added.Even though key issues related to funding were finally resolved in the extended meeting in Rome, the COP16 talks in Colombia, which concluded in November, produced several notable agreements, including a landmark deal requiring companies that profit from natural genetic resources, such as developing medicines from rainforest plants, to share those benefits. Progress was also made toward strengthening the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in conservation efforts.Scientists say biodiversity is essential for maintaining balanced ecosystems, providing clean air, water and food while supporting climate resilience. It also drives medical discoveries, economic stability, and the well-being of all life on Earth.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Global negotiators concluded an extended session of the United Nations biodiversity conference, COP16, with key commitments on funds needed and the institutions through which the funds will be channeled to protect the world’s biodiversity

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Global negotiators concluded an extended session of the United Nations biodiversity conference, COP16, with key commitments on funds needed and the institutions through which the funds will be channeled to protect the world's biodiversity.

The countries agreed on how they would contribute $200 billion a year by 2030 that was committed in principle at an earlier meeting in Montreal. The money includes a plan to raise $20 billion in annual conservation financing for developing nations by 2025, with that number rising to $30 billion annually by 2030, and on details of the Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims at placing 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030.

Earlier this week, the countries also agreed to create the Cali Fund, which will create methods for industries that commercially benefit from biodiversity to contribute to its conservation.

As the meeting concluded late Wednesday in Rome, participants stood up and applauded the outcomes.

“The applause is for all of you. You have done an amazing job,” said the COP16 president, Susana Muhamad of Colombia.

COP16’s successful conclusion is the first United Nations meeting in many months which ended on a positive note, as various meetings all through last year related to dealing with the global plastic pollution, climate change and the earlier biodiversity meeting itself failed to reach agreements or left many stakeholders disappointed with the outcomes reached.

“These days of work in Rome have demonstrated the commitment of the parties to advance the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Muhamad who is also Colombia’s former environment minister. Muhamad said it was the collective effort of all stakeholders which resulted in the key decisions being agreed upon. “Only by working together can we make Peace with Nature a reality,” she said.

The two-day meeting addressed issues that were left unresolved in earlier discussions held in Cali, Colombia in late 2024, focusing on securing funds to meet ambitious targets set in Montreal in 2022. The Cali meetings ended without a quorum as talks ran into overtime and too few delegates remained to guarantee that any decisions made had the backing of all U.N. member states.

Linda Krueger, Director of Biodiversity & Infrastructure Policy at The Nature Conservancy, said that in Cali many parties felt that funds created to support biodiversity didn't meet the original goals they had hoped. But in Rome, negotiators were able to agree on a financial “roadmap” that would allow the body to fulfill its original obligations.

“At a complicated geopolitical moment, this is an exciting show of progress and international cooperation for nature,” she said. "Technocratic as they might sound, these are the details that will transform ambitions on paper into tangible conservation action on the ground."

Oscar Soria, chief executive of The Common Initiative, a think tank, said the decision by the U.N. negotiators marked “a positive step” toward funding biodiversity efforts, setting clear goals and a review process.

“However, effectiveness will depend on the implementation of the commitments, the availability of financing and the political will of countries to increase their contributions,” he added.

Even though key issues related to funding were finally resolved in the extended meeting in Rome, the COP16 talks in Colombia, which concluded in November, produced several notable agreements, including a landmark deal requiring companies that profit from natural genetic resources, such as developing medicines from rainforest plants, to share those benefits. Progress was also made toward strengthening the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in conservation efforts.

Scientists say biodiversity is essential for maintaining balanced ecosystems, providing clean air, water and food while supporting climate resilience. It also drives medical discoveries, economic stability, and the well-being of all life on Earth.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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At the bus stop, a living ad for nature

A movement is installing plants on bus shelters, providing habitats for pollinators and countering the urban heat-island effect.

Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript for the best experience.Bus shelters tend to be practical, utility-oriented, no-frills structures. They offer protection from the elements. Seating for while you wait. Maybe an ad to grab your attention.But a green bus stop movement is seeking to make them something more: Antidotes to the heat-island effect. Habitats for native pollinators. Living advertisements for incorporating nature into the built environment.These installations were first popularized in the Netherlands, which has almost 1,000 of them. They have been sprouting across Europe, as well as in Japan, Singapore and Canada, among other countries. The biggest U.S. collection is in Boston, which fitted 30 bus shelters with green roofs last fall. This year, green bus shelters are planned for two Maryland towns, Bladensburg and Edmonston. There also have been proposals to install them in Arlington, Virginia, and New York.A bus shelter with a green roof in Utrecht, Netherlands. (Bauer Media Outdoor Europe)A green roof bus shelter in the Ville-Marie borough in Montreal. (CNW Group/École de technologie supérieure)Green roofs on buildings have become even more common in many cities around the world, and those larger surfaces stand to have more environmental impact than a relatively tiny bus shelter. But roof plantings are often out of view from the street. Cultivating a garden on a bus shelter can influence how people perceive the world as they make their way around town.Green bus shelters can also add up. The city of Boston estimates that if all 8,000 of its bus stops featured living roofs, it would amount to about 17 acres of green space — that’s the size of nearly 13 football fields.The ingredients of a green bus stopGreen bus shelters typically involve five key components.(The Washington Post; iStock)(Zachary Balcoff/The Washington Post; iStock)1: Rigid structureA green roof structure needs to be able to support a lot of weight — not just soil and vegetation, but water after a heavy rain.So retrofitting an old bus shelter roof may not be sufficient. “You don’t want to put a green roof on a roof that’s, say, 15 to 16 years old. Ideally, you want to put it on a brand-new roof,” said Chase Coard, founder and CEO of Ecospaces, a green roofing company in Washington.2: Root barrierNext comes the root barrier: an impermeable fabric, plastic or rubberized material that will restrict the downward growth of the plants.3: Drainage and retentionOn top of the impermeable layer is the drainage mechanism, designed to collect and store rainwater for the benefit of the plants and slowly release the excess in a way that doesn’t overwhelm city drains.4: SoilThe depth of this layer will determine how many native plant species can thrive and how heavy and costly the green roof will be. The soil for a green roof should be more lightweight and mineral-based than typical house plant soil, to increase rainwater retention, according to the National Park Service.5: VegetationNative plants can help support local biodiversity. Zoe Davis, senior climate resilience project manager for the city of Boston, said their selections have attracted butterflies, bees, birds and squirrels.Probably the most common green roof plants are sedums, which are lightweight succulents. “You can basically toss them into really extreme environments and somehow they’ve found a way to survive and thrive off of little soil and little water at times,” said Larry Davis of Green Mechanics, a Maryland company specializing in ecological design.The impact of green bus stopsOne key advantage of green bus shelters is as a counter to urban heat islands. Living roofs can provide more shade than glass roofs, and they don’t absorb and reemit heat the way a blacktopped roof would. Instead, they can hold water long enough for it to evaporate and have a cooling effect.Jean-Luc Martel, a professor at École de technologie supérieure in Montreal, measured temperatures inside traditional bus shelters and ones with green roofs and found a difference of as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit at peak times.Living roofs have been documented to reduce surrounding air temperatures by up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.A case study in CanadaA thermal-imaging camera deployed in Montreal shows a bus shelter with a green roof is significantly cooler than one without. This study was conducted in August 2024 as part of an experiment by École de technologie supérieure, a local university. (École de technologie supérieure)For Utrecht, a city in the Netherlands, a goal of building green bus shelters was to address a rapid decline in the bee population. Strategically placed living roofs created “bee lines” and helped keep pollinators fed.The installations may have contributed to a steadying of the bee population, as reflected in a “national bee census” (which involves citizens counting the bees in their gardens for 30 minutes on designated days each year).Some of the green bus shelters in the United States are really demonstration projects. In San Francisco, Philadelphia and East Lansing, Michigan, the idea was to provide information about green roof infrastructure that is often hundreds of feet out of sight.Those novelty installations may affect how people think about vegetation in their surroundings. But it’s when living roofs are installed on a larger scale that they may start to have real environmental effects.“It’s the accumulation of those small, small things you will be doing that will have an impact in the long run,” Martel said.About this storyDesign and development by Zachary Balcoff. Editing by Marisa Bellack. Design editing by Christine Ashack and Joe Moore. Photo editing by Dominique Hildebrand. Copy editing by Shibani Shah. Additional support by Emma Kumer and Carson TerBush.

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Labour housing plans could destroy 215,000 hectares of nature in England, analysis shows

Critics say change in biodiversity protections would harm environmental recovery and make scheme ineffectivePlans to weaken environmental regulations for small housebuilders would allow developers in England to build on an area the size of the Yorkshire Dales in the next 10 years without replacing the nature they destroy, according to analysis.Labour wants to remove the requirement for small housebuilders – those whose sites are under a hectare (2.5 acres) – to replace the nature they destroy under existing rules known as biodiversity net gain. Continue reading...

Plans to weaken environmental regulations for small housebuilders would allow developers to build on an area the size of the Yorkshire Dales in the next 10 years without replacing the nature they destroy, according to analysis.Labour wants to remove the requirement for small housebuilders in England – defined as those whose sites are under a hectare (2.5 acres) – to replace the nature they destroy under rules known as biodiversity net gain.Ministers are consulting on plans to tear up the rules for small developers to boost growth. But analysis of the impacts of Labour’s proposal by environmental economists from the consultancy Eftec, suggests 97% of planning approvals – 76,800 out of 79,300 every year – would be exempt from the requirement to replace the nature that is destroyed if the rules are changed.This would mean an area of more than 215,000 hectares, the size of the Yorkshire Dales, could be built on over the next decade with no requirement for developers to compensate for any of the nature they destroy.The biodiversity net gain rules were brought in to help tackle devastating nature loss. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and the government is signed up to a pledge to boost nature recovery by committing to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.Biodiversity net gain, which requires developers to ensure a 10% increase in biodiversity, came into effect for major developments in February 2024 and for small sites in April 2024. But government plans to scrap the rules for small developers – who dominate planning in England – would render the scheme utterly ineffective, the report says.“Biodiversity net gain is a hugely important principle: industries that harm nature should contribute to its recovery,” said Richard Benwell, of Wildlife and Countryside Link, which commissioned the research with the Lifescape Project. “The proposal to drastically widen the number of exempt small sites from the system would be a return to the bad old days of damaging development and torpedo confidence in private investment in nature recovery.”Biodiversity net gain was supposed to apply to most planning applications but the research found 69,500 out of 80,400 (86%) approved planning applications between March 2024 and February 2025 claimed exemptions, in what the researchers believe could be widespread abuses by developers.Under current rules biodiversity net gain is not required for sites less than 25 sq metres, or those that do not affect protected habitats. But developers are able to “self declare” to claim these exemptions.Economists found a rise in claims for these “de minimis” exemptions, after the rules came into force last year. “The scale of misuse across different sizes of planning applications suggests the de minimis exemption may be being intentionally misinterpreted,” the report said.Joan Edwards, the director of policy and public affairs at the Wildlife Trusts, said the government wanted investment from the private sector to help it meet its binding nature recovery targets by 2030. But changing the system after just 13 months could destroy the biodiversity market.“Scrapping biodiversity net gain for small sites would be a spectacular own goal,” she said. “Nothing undermines private-sector confidence more than a government that chops and changes the rules on a whim.”The economists suggest Labour should instead tweak its changes to improve the efficiency of the system. It suggests excluding only sites of up to 0.1 hectares that align with the government’s proposed new definition of “very small sites”. This would also remove the current loophole that allows some very large sites to sidestep BNG entirely by claiming de minimis exemption.Thousands of individuals and organisations have responded to the government consultation on the changes, which ends on 24 July.Robert Oates, the chief executive and founder of ecological consultancy Arbtech, said: “The government’s proposal to weaken biodiversity net gain for small sites threatens both its goals: supporting nature recovery and accelerating housebuilding.“Small site biodiversity net gain has only been in place for 13 months, yet developers and businesses have spent years preparing for it. U-turns like this create damaging instability. Developers need certainty, not another policy rewrite.”A government spokesperson said: “This government is fully committed to biodiversity net gain and this consultation explores easier, quicker and cheaper routes to deliver gains for both developers and nature. We are also consulting on how biodiversity net gain should be applied to nationally significant infrastructure projects to provide a clear framework that ensures major new developments deliver for nature and contribute to our legally binding targets.”

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‘People can’t imagine something on that scale dying’: Anohni on mourning the Great Barrier Reef

The Anohni and the Johnsons singer is collaborating with marine scientists for two special shows at Sydney’s Vivid festival that will show the reef’s plight Anohni Hegarty is about to go to the Great Barrier Reef for the first time. “I feel like I’m going to Auschwitz,” she says nervously. “On the one hand, I’m so excited to go because the landscape is so beautiful, and I know there’s going to be so much that’s gorgeous. And yet, I’m also scared.”In a week, the British-born, New York-based avant garde singer of Anohni and the Johnsons is flying to Lizard Island, a paradise of powdery sands on the reef, 1,600km north-west of Brisbane. Its luxury villas and bluest of blue waters are a stark contrast to the grim nature of Anohni’s assignment: documenting the current state of the world’s biggest coral reef. Continue reading...

Anohni Hegarty is about to go to the Great Barrier Reef for the first time. “I feel like I’m going to Auschwitz,” she says nervously. “On the one hand, I’m so excited to go because the landscape is so beautiful, and I know there’s going to be so much that’s gorgeous. And yet, I’m also scared.”In a week, the British-born, New York-based avant garde singer of Anohni and the Johnsons is flying to Lizard Island, a paradise of powdery sands on the reef, 1,600km north-west of Brisbane. Its luxury villas and bluest of blue waters are a stark contrast to the grim nature of Anohni’s assignment: documenting the current state of the world’s biggest coral reef.Reefs are hubs of biodiversity, supporting about a third of all marine species and 1 billion people, and crucial to the Earth as both a carbon sink and a home to algae, which produce at least half of the planet’s oxygen. The Amazon rainforest, which produces about 20% of our oxygen, is often described as the Earth’s lungs; being the size of Italy or Texas, you could call the Great Barrier Reef the left lung and the Amazon the right. But the gigantic reef is not well: it has been hit by six mass coral bleaching events in the past nine years, an alarming trend driven by record marine heatwaves. If coral reefs disappear, scientists warn there will be a domino effect as other ecosystems follow – a step down the path towards mass extinction.Tracing the worst coral bleaching event in recorded history – videoAnohni has been thinking about what she calls “ceremonies fit for purpose”, for a loss of this magnitude. When a sudden catastrophe happens, like a terror attack or natural disaster, humanity has worked out ways to process grief and anger en masse: funerals, memorials, protest, activism. But what do we do in the face of a slower death – like the worst global bleaching event on record, which is happening right now and has hit more than 80% of the planet’s reefs?“Where are the ceremonies fit for the purpose of naming and commemorating the times that we’re living through?” she asks. “To see the Great Barrier Reef fall, that’s 10,000 9/11s.”“People can’t really imagine something on that scale dying,” she says.For this year’s Vivid festival, Anohni is performing two shows at the Sydney Opera House, titled Mourning the Great Barrier Reef, featuring songs from across her career and footage of the reef captured at Lizard Island. With the help of Grumpy Turtle, a production company that specialises in underwater and conservation films, Anohni will be directing the scuba team from the surface in her snorkel. The image of such a poised performer, bobbing along in the ocean, seems wonderfully incongruous even to her. “I can’t believe I’m doing it,” she laughs. “I feel so privileged just to go. I’m scared and I’m very excited. But I’m with a great team, and they’re all very knowledgeable, so they’ll help me through it.”Just as a dying star glows more brightly before it goes dark, coral look even more beautiful in distress. Fluorescing – a phenomenon when corals release a garish pigment into their flesh as a sign of heat stress – is deceptively spectacular; and bleaching – when corals expel the photosynthetic algae that give them colour in response to warmer ocean temperatures – turns them a dazzling white.Bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef in April last year. Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images“It is like when someone’s dying, sometimes they show the gold of the soul,” Anohni says. “They throw their life force into a final expression. That’s what coral bleaching is … she’s saying goodbye.” She describes a conversation she had with a scientist who went out to visit a dead reef with a group of Danish students, “and they were all saying it was the most beautiful thing in the world, because they didn’t even know what they were looking at was a bunch of skeletons”.Anohni has long been singing about the climate crisis, sneaking this bitter pill into her beautiful, otherworldly songs. “I need another world,” she sang sorrowfully on 2009’s Another World. “This one’s nearly gone.” On 4 Degrees, released as world leaders met for the 2015 Paris climate conference, she sang her grim vision of the future: “I wanna hear the dogs crying for water / I wanna see the fish go belly-up in the sea / And all those lemurs and all those tiny creatures / I wanna see them burn, it is only four degrees.”She has grown used to being seen “as a kind of a Cassandra on the sidelines”; the prophet doomed to be ignored. Still, she is “so grateful” for being alienated in a way – as a trans artist, as a climate activist – “because when you have an outsider status, you have an opportunity to see the forest for the trees”.Her songs are often about how everything is connected: patriarchy, white supremacy, late stage capitalism, climate change denial, public surveillance, centuries of extraction and environmental degradation, and societies built on religions that preach that paradise is elsewhere, not here – “all this unwellness that we have woven together”, she says. Naomi Klein recently described Anohni as “one of the few musicians who have attempted to make art that wraps its arms around the death drive that has gripped our world”.It Must Change by Anohni and the JohnsonsAnohni has a special connection to Australia: in 2013 she was invited to visit the Martu people of Parnngurr, in the West Australian desert, “an experience that changed me forever”. When she asked one Martu woman where they believed people went after death: “She just looked at me like I was an idiot and said, ‘Back to country’.”This “deeply shocked” Anohni, from a British and Irish Catholic background. “She had a profound, peaceful acceptance of this animist reality,” she says. “I was raised in a society where they believed that only humans had souls and that this place was basically just a suffering ground where we had to mind our Ps and Qs. I no longer believe that.”In 2015, she played two concerts at Dark Mofo to raise proceeds for the Martu’s fight against a proposed uranium mine on their ancestral lands; the following year she joined them on a 110km protest march in the outback. She even willingly entered Australia’s most hostile environment – Q&A – where she memorably blasted a panellist for opposing wind turbines, telling him: “You’re doomed and I’m doomed and your children are doomed.”“I screamed at those fucking wankers, and made a fucking fool of myself,” she says, smiling, “and I was torn a new arsehole in the Murdoch press.” But at the same time, she was inundated with messages of support from all over the country. “I was proud of the chance to be of service to Australians,” she says.Great Barrier Reef suffering ‘most severe’ coral bleaching on record – videoStill, she agonises over her own impact on the environment, even the decision to go to Lizard Island. She is not assigning blame to anyone else – if anything, her finger is directed firmly at herself. “Just coming to Australia is an intolerable equation – the amount of oil that I burn to get there,” she says. Now if she performs in Australia, she does it for a cause and leaves the proceeds behind “because there’s no way morally to justify it any more”.For the Vivid project, Anohni is also interviewing eight “incredible” scientists about what they have observed on the Great Barrier Reef, including Dr Anya Salih, an expert on reef fluorescence, and the “Godfather of Coral”, Prof Charlie Veron. “They’re the ones who have stewarded the reef, who’ve watched her and cried with her as she’s declined,” she says. She admires that they don’t hide their grief; as Veron told the Guardian back in 2009: “The future is horrific. There is no hope of reefs surviving to even mid-century in any form that we now recognise.”“Australia is pioneering in this oeuvre of environmental feeling,” Anohni says. “It’s could be something to do with the Australian temperament. It’s more expressive. It’s stoic too, but there’s room for feeling. The English scientific community is very, very cruel in that regard – any expression of emotion is grounds for exclusion from any conversation of reason.”It is her hope that her Vivid shows will be fit for purpose – to show people the reality of the reef and give them a space to both marvel and grieve. “But to grieve doesn’t mean that a thing is done – to grieve just means that you’re recognising where we are,” she says.“For an hour and a half you can come to the Great Barrier Reef with me, and we’ll look at it and we’ll feel it. Without understanding what we’re looking at, there’s no hope of finding a direction forward. It’s actually a profound gesture of hope.”

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‘Don’t ask what AI can do for us, ask what it is doing to us’: are ChatGPT and co harming human intelligence?

Recent research suggests our brain power is in decline. Is offloading our cognitive work to AI driving this trend?Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: “Write, for no more than a quarter of an hour, about a British author.”Today, most of us wouldn’t need 15 minutes to ponder such a question. We’d get the answer instantly by turning to AI tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Siri. Offloading cognitive effort to artificial intelligence has become second nature, but with mounting evidence that human intelligence is declining, some experts fear this impulse is driving the trend. Continue reading...

Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: “Write, for no more than a quarter of an hour, about a British author.”Today, most of us wouldn’t need 15 minutes to ponder such a question. We’d get the answer instantly by turning to AI tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Siri. Offloading cognitive effort to artificial intelligence has become second nature, but with mounting evidence that human intelligence is declining, some experts fear this impulse is driving the trend.Of course, this isn’t the first time that new technology has raised concerns. Studies already show how mobile phones distract us, social media damages our fragile attention spans and GPS has rendered our navigational abilities obsolete. Now, here comes an AI co-pilot to relieve us of our most cognitively demanding tasks – from handling tax returns to providing therapy and even telling us how to think.Where does that leave our brains? Free to engage in more substantive pursuits or wither on the vine as we outsource our thinking to faceless algorithms?“The greatest worry in these times of generative AI is not that it may compromise human creativity or intelligence,” says psychologist Robert Sternberg at Cornell University, who is known for his groundbreaking work on intelligence, “but that it already has.”The argument that we are becoming less intelligent draws from several studies. Some of the most compelling are those that examine the Flynn effect – the observed increase in IQ over successive generations throughout the world since at least 1930, attributed to environmental factors rather than genetic changes. But in recent decades, the Flynn effect has slowed or even reversed.In the UK, James Flynn himself showed that the average IQ of a 14-year-old dropped by more than two points between 1980 and 2008. Meanwhile, global study the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows an unprecedented drop in maths, reading and science scores across many regions, with young people also showing poorer attention spans and weaker critical thinking.Nevertheless, while these trends are empirical and statistically robust, their interpretations are anything but. “Everyone wants to point the finger at AI as the boogeyman, but that should be avoided,” says Elizabeth Dworak, at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, who recently identified hints of a reversal of the Flynn effect in a large sample of the US population tested between 2006 and 2018.Intelligence is far more complicated than that, and probably shaped by many variables – micronutrients such as iodine are known to affect brain development and intellectual abilities, likewise changes in prenatal care, number of years in education, pollution, pandemics and technology all influence IQ, making it difficult to isolate the impact of a single factor. “We don’t act in a vacuum, and we can’t point to one thing and say, ‘That’s it,’” says Dworak.Still, while AI’s impact on overall intelligence is challenging to quantify (at least in the short term), concerns about cognitive offloading diminishing specific cognitive skills are valid – and measurable.Studies have suggested that the use of AI for memory-related tasks may lead to a decline in an individual’s own memory capacityWhen considering AI’s impact on our brains, most studies focus on generative AI (GenAI) – the tool that has allowed us to offload more cognitive effort than ever before. Anyone who owns a phone or a computer can access almost any answer, write any essay or computer code, produce art or photography – all in an instant. There have been thousands of articles written about the many ways in which GenAI has the potential to improve our lives, through increased revenues, job satisfaction and scientific progress, to name a few. In 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated that GenAI could boost annual global GDP by 7% over a 10-year period – an increase of roughly $7tn.The fear comes, however, from the fact that automating these tasks deprives us of the opportunity to practise those skills ourselves, weakening the neural architecture that supports them. Just as neglecting our physical workouts leads to muscle deterioration, outsourcing cognitive effort atrophies neural pathways.One of our most vital cognitive skills at risk is critical thinking. Why consider what you admire about a British author when you can get ChatGPT to reflect on that for you?Research underscores these concerns. Michael Gerlich at SBS Swiss Business School in Kloten, Switzerland, tested 666 people in the UK and found a significant correlation between frequent AI use and lower critical-thinking skills – with younger participants who showed higher dependence on AI tools scoring lower in critical thinking compared with older adults.Similarly, a study by researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania surveyed 319 people in professions that use GenAI at least once a week. While it improved their efficiency, it also inhibited critical thinking and fostered long-term overreliance on the technology, which the researchers predict could result in a diminished ability to solve problems without AI support.“It’s great to have all this information at my fingertips,” said one participant in Gerlich’s study, “but I sometimes worry that I’m not really learning or retaining anything. I rely so much on AI that I don’t think I’d know how to solve certain problems without it.” Indeed, other studies have suggested that the use of AI systems for memory-related tasks may lead to a decline in an individual’s own memory capacity.This erosion of critical thinking is compounded by the AI-driven algorithms that dictate what we see on social media. “The impact of social media on critical thinking is enormous,” says Gerlich. “To get your video seen, you have four seconds to capture someone’s attention.” The result? A flood of bite-size messages that are easily digested but don’t encourage critical thinking. “It gives you information that you don’t have to process any further,” says Gerlich.By being served information rather than acquiring that knowledge through cognitive effort, the ability to critically analyse the meaning, impact, ethics and accuracy of what you have learned is easily neglected in the wake of what appears to be a quick and perfect answer. “To be critical of AI is difficult – you have to be disciplined. It is very challenging not to offload your critical thinking to these machines,” says Gerlich.Wendy Johnson, who studies intelligence at Edinburgh University, sees this in her students every day. She emphasises that it is not something she has tested empirically but believes that students are too ready to substitute independent thinking with letting the internet tell them what to do and believe.Without critical thinking, it is difficult to ensure that we consume AI-generated content wisely. It may appear credible, particularly as you become more dependent on it, but don’t be fooled. A 2023 study in Science Advances showed that, compared with humans, GPT-3 chat not only produces information that is easier to understand but also more compelling disinformation.Why does that matter? “Think of a hypothetical billionaire,” says Gerlich. “They create their own AI and they use that to influence people because they can train it in a specific way to emphasise certain politics or certain opinions. If there is trust and dependency on it, the question arises of how much it is influencing our thoughts and actions.”AI’s effect on creativity is equally disconcerting. Studies show that AI tends to help individuals produce more creative ideas than they can generate alone. However, across the whole population, AI-concocted ideas are less diverse, which ultimately means fewer “Eureka!” moments.Sternberg captures these concerns in a recent essay in the Journal of Intelligence: “Generative AI is replicative. It can recombine and re-sort ideas, but it is not clear that it will generate the kinds of paradigm-breaking ideas the world needs to solve the serious problems that confront it, such as global climate change, pollution, violence, increasing income disparities, and creeping autocracy.”To ensure that you maintain your ability to think creatively, you might want to consider how you engage with AI – actively or passively. Research by Marko Müller from the University of Ulm in Germany shows a link between social media use and higher creativity in younger people but not in older generations. Digging into the data, he suggests this may be to do with the difference in how people who were born in the era of social media use it compared with those who came to it later in life. Younger people seem to benefit creatively from idea-sharing and collaboration, says Müller, perhaps because they’re more open with what they share online compared with older users, who tend to consume it more passively.Alongside what happens while you use AI, you might spare a thought to what happens after you use it. Cognitive neuroscientist John Kounios from Drexel University in Philadelphia explains that, just like anything else that is pleasurable, our brain gets a buzz from having a sudden moment of insight, fuelled by activity in our neural reward systems. These mental rewards help us remember our world-changing ideas and also modify our immediate behaviour, making us less risk averse – this is all thought to drive further learning, creativity and opportunities. But insights generated from AI don’t seem to have such a powerful effect in the brain. “The reward system is an extremely important part of brain development, and we just don’t know what the effect of using these technologies will have downstream,” says Kounios. “Nobody’s tested that yet.”There are other long-term implications to consider. Researchers have only recently discovered that learning a second language, for instance, helps delay the onset of dementia for around four years, yet in many countries, fewer students are applying for language courses. Giving up a second language in favour of AI-powered instant-translation apps might be the reason, but none of these can – so far – claim to protect your future brain health.As Sternberg warns, we need to stop asking what AI can do for us and start asking what it is doing to us. Until we know for sure, the answer, according to Gerlich, is to “train humans to be more human again – using critical thinking, intuition – the things that computers can’t yet do and where we can add real value.”We can’t expect the big tech companies to help us do this, he says. No developer wants to be told their program works too well; makes it too easy for a person to find an answer. “So it needs to start in schools,” says Gerlich. “AI is here to stay. We have to interact with it, so we need to learn how to do that in the right way.” If we don’t, we won’t just make ourselves redundant, but our cognitive abilities too.

Nature
Business
Education

Our ‘Technofossils’ Will Define Us Forever

Discarded authors Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz, observers of the geological past, look into the future

We all wonder about our legacy—what will remain of us when we’re gone? Two paleontologists set out to answer that question for the whole of humankind in a new book that explores how the material abundance of modern life will be preserved in Earth’s geological strata.This Anthropocene rock layer will catch the eye of anyone digging around millions of years from now, according to Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz, both professors at the University of Leicester in England. Biological fossils will suddenly give way to a strange menagerie of what Gabbott and Zalasiewicz call technofossils: polyester sweaters, QWERTY keyboards, saxophones. These objects, if buried quickly in the right environment (such as a landfill, where they’re often safely entombed in plastic liners), stand a good chance of enduring.Scientific American talked with Gabbott and Zalasiewicz, authors of the book Discarded: How Technofossils Will Be Our Ultimate Legacy, about the things we’re leaving behind, the ways those items will live on in the environment and the impression that future paleontologists might have of us.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.What do we know right now about the technofossils we’ll leave behind?GABBOTT: We’re making things that will be more durable than the stuff biology makes. By that reasoning, it’s probably going to last a long time. But [we don’t know] how long and what it’s going to do in that journey from being discarded to being a fossil.... It’s also fascinating to think about some future civilization or aliens visiting Earth. What the hell are they going to make of all this stuff? Those are the two big unknowns.Let’s start with the first one. How do you study fossilization that hasn’t happened yet?GABBOTT: We can’t do the experiments because there’s not enough time. So we learn some of these things by looking at analogues in the fossil record. There are these plasticlike polymers that some green algae make [that are] almost identical to polyethylene. And the same green algae have been found in rocks that are 48 million years old—this stuff hasn’t changed. Concrete is another one [that we’ve found analogues for]. It’s really just limestone and shale; we know that lasts forever. A lot of these technofossils, there’s no reason to assume that they’re going to be any different. They’re just going to be incredibly resilient.You describe our technofossil legacy as a “puzzle” for future paleontologists. Will they be able to solve it?ZALASIEWICZ: We’re making so many complicated structures that have no [equivalent] in the biological world. So the discoverers will have to realize this is technology, not some kind of biology. Then they have to try to work out what these things were used for. That won’t always be clear.GABBOTT: What I’m talking to you on now, my mobile phone—these things are just rectangles. They’re going to wonder, what is this? And when I was writing [the book], I hadn’t realized just how ephemeral our digital data can be. These big cloud storage bases, even if they survive, [decoding] that stuff is probably going to be impossible. So we have all this computer stuff..., and I think it’s going to be really hard to work out what it was for. [At least] it’s nice to think that paper actually preserves quite well.Maybe a fossilized copy of Discarded will become their field guide.ZALASIEWICZ: It’s a lovely idea. Books themselves [are] at least as fossilizable as your average leaf, and we know you go to the right strata and find fossil leaves by the lorry load. The trouble is the same as when you have many, many fossils piled up on top of each other: you just have a mess. But if you’re patient enough you could actually dissect it—the same, I think, with the pages of any book. It’s a tall order, but you never say anything’s impossible in geology because you get more and more weird and amazing fossils turning up all the time.What will be the most extraordinary technofossils?ZALASIEWICZ: We mention these [soccer]-pitch-length [wind turbine] blades, cut up into segments and stacked side by side [after they’ve been decommissioned]. It looks almost surreal. This pattern could preserve, let’s say, on a big cliffside—imagine one of these in a future Grand Canyon. [And] when you think of the bits of a city that are going to be preserved, [it’s] all the bits underground..., the subway systems, the electricity, the drains. Again, one can imagine a cliffside where the underground part of Amsterdam or New Orleans is outlined.Tomorrow’s marvels are, in many cases, today’s pollution. How do you think about that?ZALASIEWICZ: There really is a connection between the far future and the uncomfortable, dangerous, toxic present. We put stuff into a landfill because we have a problem. We put it into a hole—problem solved. But of course, that landfill site is subject to all the processes that affect any fossil. If it’s buried, it can easily be exhumed [by geological processes] and go back into the surface environment at intervals of tens of millions of years.GABBOTT: Because this stuff is going to last a long time, because this stuff is polluting now, we really need to start thinking: Do I need another pair of sunglasses? Do I need another mobile phone?Speaking of which, I know from a vague passage in the book that one of you still has a flip phone.ZALASIEWICZ: [Holds up some primitive, dimly familiar device] Me. I never quite caught up. My son is very tech-savvy, so perhaps he will guide me into this strange new world. But I still survive with it. It still gives me enough.What story will our technofossils tell about us?GABBOTT: They will tell that we were a complex society, that we were technologically able, intelligent. But also they will tell of a species that was profligate, that made things in vast numbers..., using up resources without knowing the downstream consequences.ZALASIEWICZ: The fact that all of this is being done while there is evidence of increasing environmental perturbation, I think, will strike them. The better angels and the worse angels of our nature will both be fairly obvious.

Nature
Pollution
Science

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