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Contribution short abstract

This contribution questions whether AI solutions to climate and environmental crises serve justice or entrench inequality, examining who benefits, who pays, and how AI can be reoriented to support equity, climate justice, and truly sustainable futures.

Contribution long abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly framed as a transformative tool for development and climate action. Yet, these narratives often assume that digitalisation and automation inherently advance progress, ignoring how AI systems can reproduce or exacerbate existing inequalities. This contribution critically examines the potential and limitations of AI in addressing climate and environmental crises, with a particular focus on climate justice and sustainable futures. It explores the intersections between emissions, climate change, and disease outbreaks, highlighting how technological interventions can shape welfare outcomes unevenly across populations and geographies. By interrogating who benefits from AI-enabled solutions and who bears the costs, the discussion challenges dominant assumptions that AI is a neutral tool for environmental problem-solving. Drawing on examples from both Global North and Global South contexts, the contribution considers how AI can be designed, governed, and deployed in ways that prioritize equity, accountability, and local knowledge. The roundtable aims to move beyond technical efficiency and digitalisation hype, asking what a just and sustainable AI-enabled development pathway might look like in practice. Participants will be invited to critically reflect on the ethical, social, and political dimensions of AI in environmental governance, and to discuss strategies for ensuring that technological innovation contributes to fair and effective climate action rather than deepening existing vulnerabilities. Ultimately, the discussion seeks to generate forward-looking perspectives on aligning AI development with broader goals of climate justice, environmental sustainability, and inclusive development.