Humanity’s use of technology is amongst the biggest risks and opportunities to planet Earth and its inhabitants. Unleashing its potential while ensuring sustainable digitalization is key. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) harnesses artificial intelligence to track global environmental changes while actively working to mitigate AI’s own heavy carbon, water, and energy footprints.
Digital technologies can catalyze progress towards the environmental goals of the Agenda 2030 – but not without risks. While digitalization creates opportunities by increasing the availability of environmental data and enabling innovative solutions, it also introduces environmental risks, including pollution and overconsumption of natural resources. The United Nations Environment Programme works to ensure digital technologies and digital public infrastructure worldwide contribute to advancing environmental sustainability and are sustainable by design. They take a systemic approach: nurturing sustainability-focused digital infrastructures, norms and incentives, and fostering new technological solutions to complex environmental challenges. The aim is to build accessible environmental data and digital infrastructures, endorse sustainable norms and transform technology, and promote global digital literacy for the benefit of our environment.
Key UNEP AI Initiatives & Applications
- EnvironmentGPT: An AI-powered large language model created by UNEP to surface verified, citation-backed environmental data and combat climate misinformation, accessible via the Digital Accelerator Lab.
- Methane Detection (IMEO & MARS): Using AI to turn satellite observations into actionable methane gas mitigation across oil and gas facilities, matching the annual impact of removing millions of cars.
- World Environment Situation Room: A central platform integrating AI use cases, biodiversity maps, and climate commitment tracking.
- Coalition for Environmentally Sustainable AI: Spearheaded alongside France and the ITU at the Paris AI Action Summit to standardize green metrics, data center energy efficiency, and lifecycle assessments.
Addressing AI’s Environmental Footprint
- Rapid Data Center Growth: Global data centers have surged to 8 million facilities, consuming massive amounts of power and billions of liters of water.
- Transparency Push: The UN has urged major tech companies to publicly report their carbon, land, and water usage, committing to 100% renewable energy for data centers by 2030.
