Published on: 2026-07-06
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
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July 6, 2026 Climate and Environment
Artificial intelligence is already helping to predict floods, monitor deforestation, and use water more efficiently. But at the same time, it itself is becoming an increasingly serious burden on the environment. This is the conclusion reached by the authors of an international report dedicated to the relationship between artificial intelligence and ecology.
The White Paper on: AI and Environment was prepared by the Nature and People Foundation in cooperation with Fudan University (China) and Pahlé India Foundation (India) with the participation of the UN Internet Governance Forum’s Dynamic Coalition on Environment. The study was presented on July 6 in Geneva at the first meeting of the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance established by the UN General Assembly.
Comprehensive study
The authors describe their work as a comprehensive study examining two aspects of AI development at once. On the one hand, new technologies can accelerate the fight against climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and water scarcity. On the other hand, the rapid growth of computing power requires a tremendous amount of electricity, water for cooling data centers, and natural resources for equipment production.
Whether artificial intelligence ultimately becomes an ally or an adversary of nature will depend less on the technology itself and more on engineering decisions, transparency requirements, and political regulatory mechanisms that the world adopts in the coming years.
“Whether artificial intelligence ultimately becomes an ally of nature or its adversary will depend less on the technology itself and more on the engineering decisions, transparency requirements, and political regulatory mechanisms that the world adopts in the coming years,” emphasizes Jeffrey Sachs, Professor at Columbia University and head of the Solutions Network on Sustainable Development, in the preface to the publication.
The report’s authors remind that earlier, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on leading companies developing AI to openly publish data on the environmental impact of their technologies. However, despite growing interest in regulating artificial intelligence, the environmental consequences of its development remain insufficiently studied.
Human assistant
The report provides many examples of how AI is already helping nature. Algorithms improve the accuracy of climate models and weather forecasts, enable faster detection of forest fires, monitor greenhouse gas emissions, control the status of rare animal species, predict droughts and floods, detect leaks in water supply systems, and optimize irrigation in agriculture.
Ecological footprint
But technology also has a downside. As generative AI spreads, the main environmental impact is gradually shifting not so much to model training but to their daily use by billions of people. According to the data presented in the report, by 2025 all AI systems in the world could become a source of 32.6–79.7 million tons of CO₂ emissions — roughly the same amount produced by New York in a year.
Water consumption
At the same time, there is clearly a lack of information about the actual consumption of electricity, water, and other resources. The authors point to this lack of transparency as one of the main problems. According to estimates, by 2025 AI could consume from 312 to 765 billion liters of water—approximately the same amount that humanity uses annually for bottled water. By 2027, this figure could reach a volume comparable to half of the annual water consumption of the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, data centers are often built in regions where fresh water is already scarce, creating additional strain on local resources.
Experts’ recommendations
On the eve of the key UN summits in 2026, dedicated to combating desertification, climate change, biodiversity conservation, and water resource management, our report provides an objective picture of how artificial intelligence is already impacting the environment today
Researchers compared approaches to AI regulation in Russia, India, China, the USA, and the European Union. They concluded that currently none of the existing models fully takes into account the environmental consequences of artificial intelligence development. As initial priority steps, it is proposed to introduce unified international standards for environmental reporting on AI, assess its impact throughout the entire life cycle, make data on energy consumption and water usage more transparent, and more actively coordinate international efforts.
“On the eve of the key 2026 UN summits dedicated to combating desertification, climate change, biodiversity conservation, and water resource management, our report provides an objective picture of how artificial intelligence is already impacting the environment today,” explains Sergey Rybakov, CEO of the Nature and People Foundation and co-chair of the UN Internet Governance Forum’s Dynamic Coalition on Environment.
The main conclusion of the study is quite simple: the environmental footprint of artificial intelligence is not an inevitable price of technological progress. What will happen in ten or twenty years depends on the decisions governments, companies, and international organizations make today.
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