The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is “the leading global authority on the environment.” Established in 1972 and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, the UNEP serves as a “neutral convener of Member States, civil society, the private sector, and UN agencies to address humanity’s most pressing environmental challenges.” Artificial intelligence (AI) and associated technologies are growing rapidly and are contributing to increased resource consumption and pollution. As private sector actors race to develop and incorporate new AI tools, the risks such technologies pose to the environment is of great concern to the UNEP. This committee is tasked with understanding and addressing the impact of AI on the environment broadly and resource consumption in particular.
Artificial intelligence is “a catch-all term for a group of technologies that can process information and, at least superficially, mimic human thinking.” While early forms of AI date back to the 1950s, recent advances in hardware and software allow computers to transform the vast quantities of data needed to drive today’s AI. Leading firms such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft, Anthropic, and others are building enormous datacenters filled with high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), networking equipment, and the related power and cooling systems to run their AI platforms. AI models require extremely energy-intensive training in order to be useful. The explosion in AI has increased demand for electricity, water, and critical minerals, putting AI firms in conflict with people who rely on the same resources for their ability to lead healthy, productive lives.
Proponents of AI tout its potential to tackle intractable problems in medicine, physics, and environmental science. Yet despite massive breakthroughs in recent years, truly transformational change remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is the strain modern AI systems place on local environments where the resources to build and the infrastructure to run these systems are sourced and located. AI exists at the nexus of numerous global challenges. Sustainable mining practices, so-called conflict minerals, manufacturing bottlenecks in geopolitically sensitive regions, renewable energy, fresh water consumption…all of these issues and more are before delegates to the UNEP.
Focus Questions:
- Are you representing a country at the forefront of AI development? How might this impact your government’s position on AI technologies?
- Does your country possess important mineral resources such as so-called rare earth elements, cobalt, lithium, or silicon that are necessary for the hardware components of modern AI? How might this impact your government’s thinking on AI development?
- What steps are already being taken at the international level to address this issue?
Useful Links:
UNEP Article: AI Has An Environmental Problem Here’s What The World Can Do About That
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/ai-has-environmental-problem-heres-what-world-can-do-about
Artificial Intelligence End-to-End
https://www.unep.org/resources/report/artificial-intelligence-ai-end-end-environmental-impact-full-ai-lifecycle-needs-be
The Sustainable AI Coalition
https://www.sustainableaicoalition.org/
