AI can aid climate fight, but risks deepening resource strain: UNEP

Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds transformative potential in tackling the climate crisis, but its growing appetite for energy and water could aggravate environmental pressures if left unchecked, a senior United Nations official has warned.

In an interview with PTI Videos, Martin Krause, director of the climate change division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said that from a climate standpoint, AI represents both a powerful solution and a looming risk.

Highlighting AI’s expanding role in climate mitigation and adaptation, Krause pointed to its application in early weather warning systems, renewable energy grid integration, and satellite monitoring of emissions. At the same time, he cautioned that the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure — particularly data centres — brings significant environmental costs.

“AI is already helping to predict early weather warnings, such as floods and storms, with much greater accuracy, and if deployed at scale, it could protect hundreds of millions of people," Krause, who attended the recently concluded AI Impact Summit in Delhi, told PTI.

He further noted the technology’s importance in managing modern energy systems. "Secondly, integrating renewable energy into the national grid, as is currently happening in India, requires recalibrating and balancing the grid, and AI is already helping to achieve this,” he said.

The India AI Impact Summit, held in New Delhi from 16 to 20 February, examined AI’s growing influence across governance, innovation and sustainable development.

However, Krause underlined that the climate benefits of AI will depend heavily on how its infrastructure is powered. With data centres consuming vast amounts of electricity, integrating renewable energy into their operations is essential to avoid increasing greenhouse gas emissions driven by fossil fuels.

He stressed the need for location-specific evaluations to determine the most sustainable energy mix for powering such facilities.

“The key point is that there must be guardrails to ensure that, while AI and data centres bring significant benefits, they do not end up depleting the scarce natural resources we all depend on,” the UNEP official said.

The concerns echoed those raised by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the same summit, where he warned that as AI’s energy and water demands grow, data centres must transition to clean energy rather than “shift costs to vulnerable communities”.

The issue has also begun to attract formal global policy attention. In December 2025, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) adopted its first-ever resolution on the sustainable use of Artificial Intelligence — one of eleven resolutions passed during the session.

The resolution calls on member states and stakeholders to promote sustainable AI development by leveraging its environmental benefits while minimising its ecological footprint.

With PTI inputs