UN adopt first resolution on AI and environmental sustainability

The United Nations (UN) adopted the very first draft resolution regarding environmental sustainability for AI systems last week at its Nairobi environment assembly.

The resolution aims to ensure that the deployment of artificial intelligence does not jeopardise global climate and sustainable development goals, and includes three recommendations for UN member states and three new requests for UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Ingrid Andersen.

First, the draft resolution “encourages” member states and all relevant stakeholders to “promote and cooperate towards the sustainability of artificial intelligence”, both by harnessing the opportunities and benefits of AI systems in support of the environment and by minimising its environmental impacts.

It also encourages member states to take measures to improve the quality, accessibility and interoperability of AI environmental data – which to this day remains scarce – and to support the strengthening of national environmental public data systems in developing countries.

The resolution’s third recommendation for member states is to support partnerships and the scale-up of the mobilisation required to help developing countries apply AI solutions for sustainability. The UN also emphasised the importance of increased investment, including from the private sector and philanthropy, to scale up AI capacity-building for sustainable development.

New AI mandates for UNEP Executive Director

In addition to these recommendations, the resolution includes three requests for UNEP’s Executive Director: to harness AI to enhance the work of UNEP “in a transparent and accountable manner with robust human oversight”; to explore and report on the environmental benefits, risks and impacts of AI; to facilitate voluntary knowledge exchange around the sustainable development and deployment of AI systems and their use in support of the environment.

The UN also asked Andersen to report on the progress achieved in the implementation of the resolution at its eighth session, due to take place in Nairobi in December 2027.

No mention of specific environmental impacts

While this resolution is historic as the first UN-level agreement to start looking at and mitigating AI’s environmental impacts while leveraging it to support environmental goals, observers have deplored the removal of references to specific emissions and water impacts from previous drafts. 

UNEP itself published a note in September about AI’s full environmental lifecycle, recommending that member states establish standardised methods and metrics for measuring AI’s environmental impacts, with an immediate focus on “the most concerning direct effects”: consumption of energy, water and mineral resources, and the production of emissions and e-waste.