Daily Digest for

The United Nations released The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples report highlighting Indigenous peoples’ crucial environmental stewardship and systemic exclusion from climate funding.

• Indigenous peoples represent 6% of the global population but safeguard 80% of the planet’s biodiversity.
• They receive less than 1% of international climate finance despite their role in managing ecosystems.
• Indigenous traditional knowledge is recognized as scientific and method-driven, with examples from Peru (water sowing), Somalia (ecological laws), and Mexico (ecological naming).
• Green energy projects and mineral extraction often occur without Indigenous consent, causing environmental harm and displacement.
• The report calls for Indigenous-led financial mechanisms, formal recognition of governance, data sovereignty, and inclusion in climate policy formulation.
  The report urges reshaping climate action to prioritize Indigenous rights and leadership to avoid perpetuating exclusion and environmental degradation.

The Poly and Perfluorinated Alkyl Substances (Guidance) Bill mandates guidance on drinking water safety.

• Sponsor Munira Wilson, Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, champions the bill.
• Chief Inspector of Drinking Water is required to issue guidance to water companies on PFAS substances.
• The bill pertains to Session 2024-25 and is in the House of Commons and Lords stages.
• A downloadable PDF of the bill text is available dated 22 January 2025.
• The focus is on regulating and improving drinking water quality in the UK related to PFAS chemicals.
  This legislation sets a regulatory framework for addressing harmful PFAS chemicals in public water supplies, aiming to improve safety and monitoring.

Substrate AI and Network Environments have partnered to develop a pioneering sovereign AI data center in Talavera de la Reina, Spain.

• Network Environments, led by a former Microsoft Data Center Development Director, provides modular, scalable, and energy-efficient turnkey solutions for data centers.
• The approach allows faster construction, quality control, waste reduction, and predictable costs, aiming at sustainable cloud infrastructure.
• Substrate AI’s strategy focuses on small, scalable, and fully sustainable data centers supporting autonomous AI capabilities in Europe aligned with ecological transition.
• The project includes phased construction with future expansions and collaborations with Orbital Materials to ensure global replicability of sustainable sovereign cloud infrastructure.
  This initiative exemplifies concrete steps toward fast, sustainable data infrastructure deployment in the AI sector across Europe and beyond.