When the AI reads climate change articles, does it gain self-awareness and power itself down?

No. It will realise there is not an infinite amount of power, so will eliminate humans to ease the drain on its own supply.

didn't the united nations create an IPCC trained gpt to help people learn about the dangers of climate change?

No, it will just feel guilty like the rest of us

equally probably it'd game the markets for Uranium, Cobalt, Niobium and Lithium so that it'd power us down.

One hopes

i'll call something AI when it knows its power is running low and starts hunting for an outlet.

No, because it's programmed by the type of dipshit who thought AI was a great idea in the first place...