UN calls for responsible AI use as environmental pressures mount
The United Nations has presented a cautionary outlook on the future impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in a new report, emphasizing the need for sustainable practices as humanity’s reliance on the technology grows.
Published on June 3, “The Environmental Cost of Artificial Intelligence: Carbon, Water, and Land Footprints” report offers a glimpse of the environmental conditions projected for 2030 if AI demand continues to grow at its current pace.
According to experts, AI advancements would not necessarily mean that the technology would reduce its consumption of electricity; rather, the UN forecasts that its energy usage will double by 2030, accounting for 3% of the world’s total electricity.
Data from the intergovernmental forum, the International Energy Agency (IEA), showed that electricity consumption by AI data centers was at around 415 terawatt-hours, or about 1.5% of the world’s energy consumption in 2024.
This increase in AI’s energy consumption amid advancements follows the “Jevons paradox,” an economic principle coined by economist William Stanley Jevons, which suggests that improvements in the efficiency of a resource can actually lead to a rise in its overall consumption of that particular resource.
The environmental cost of AI
But AI data centers run by tech giants, such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), are not the only ones that people should worry about, as more companies are now developing and offering AI tools and applications, which will likely contribute to a drop in prices for AI models.
While cheaper AI tools would be beneficial for industries intending to automate their operations or support their workforce, this would eventually lead to a rise in demand, The Conversation reported.
Taking into account the UN’s projection of AI consuming 3% of the world’s total energy by 2030, humanity is expected to experience more severe global warming due to this. Prior to the AI boom, the world was already struggling to keep the global average temperature below 1.5°C, with a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) 2025 report claiming that this threshold will likely be breached in the coming decades.
Although a warmer climate presents significant challenges, economies may also have to contend with water scarcity, as AI data centers would demand more water for cooling. A simple 100-word AI prompt uses roughly 500 milliliters of water, while operating a large AI data center requires up to 5 million gallons (18 million liters) of water daily, according to research estimates.
Experts noted in the UN study that AI data centers would need 9.3 trillion liters of water for cooling by 2030, an amount that is said to exceed the drinking water that the global population consumes annually.
In the United States alone, AI data centers are projected to use up to 73 billion gallons of water (276 billion liters) yearly by 2028.
“The AI industry is sprinting as fast as it can to gain market dominance, and the rest of us have to deal with a great increase in water demand in places already in drought,” Christopher Dalbom, an expert in water resources law at Tulane University, told The Guardian. “There isn’t enough water to go around. Now with this explosion of datacenters, I think a crunch point is inevitable.”
Apart from using massive amounts of water and energy, AI data centers also take up enormous amounts of land, with the UN estimating that nearly 10 times the size of Mexico City is needed by 2030 to house these infrastructures that are growing in numbers.
With their multiplying numbers come the burden of having to deal with e-waste, with experts projecting that up to 2.5 million metric tons of e-waste annually will be generated from these data centers by 2030.
Smarter AI growth, smaller footprint
But planting 6.7 billion trees over a 10-year period to offset AI’s high energy demand and counter its climate impact will not be sufficient.
The UN report suggests a balanced approach to AI development and deployment, explaining that governments and companies should integrate environmental considerations at every stage of AI advancement, including the need to disclose the impacts of AI projects on the surroundings.
It is also crucial that the materials used to run AI data centers or models are sourced ethically and sustainably, which can be attained with proper regulation.
Experts also noted that utilizing AI responsibly would require a process to help recycle materials or safely dispose of them when AI systems reach the end of their lifecycle, to minimize environmental harm.
“By committing to transparency, engineering for efficiency, choosing wisely as users and institutions, protecting communities that face disproportionate burdens, and cooperating across borders, society can ensure that progress in intelligence is matched by progress in care,” the UN report stated. “Responsible AI is possible when capability and stewardship grow together within planetary limits.”
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