Abstract for: The Net Climate Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI):  Balancing Current Costs with Future Climate Benefits 

What is AI's net climate impact? Research has largely focused on AI's environmental footprint, with less attention to its potential climate benefits or trade-offs between them. This paper develops a framework to evaluate both the greenhouse gas emissions generated by AI systems and the emissions reductions AI may enable across the economy, explicitly accounting for AI's potential to accelerate economic growth, delays in realizing climate benefits, and rebound effects. The framework evaluates AI holistically, beyond emissions accounting. Causal diagrams capture the feedbacks that determine AI's rising energy demands alongside its potential to cut emissions. We recognize that AI also helps the fossil fuel industry produce hydrocarbons more cheaply, slowing the low-carbon transition. While most current applications are emissions-intensive, we account for hardware and algorithmic efficiency gains and targeted deployment in energy- and climate-critical systems that could deliver climate benefits. Despite opportunities for AI energy efficiency and decarbonization, without complementary climate policies, AI-enabled efficiency gains will likely trigger direct and indirect rebound effects that erode or reverse emissions savings. AI emissions are growing now, while AI-enabled reductions will take time, creating a "carbon debt" that accelerates warming. Even if repaid by future AI climate solutions, the added warming will persist for decades to millennia: carbon neutrality is not climate neutrality. AI's rebound effects are both direct and indirect: innovations lowering AI's energy intensity also cut its costs, increasing use, while economy-wide productivity gains boost income and growth. As a general-purpose technology in its infancy, both rebounds are likely large, raising overall energy use and emissions—partly because of AI's efficiency gains. Policies to address these threats include pricing carbon and GHG emissions, promoting energy efficiency, stimulating renewables, and preventing AI greenwashing.