UN Chief Calls on AI Firms to Disclose Environmental Costs
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on June 23 launched the U.N. AI Environmental Transparency Initiative and urged major artificial intelligence companies to measure and publicly disclose their carbon, water, and land footprints, Reuters and the Associated Press report. He called for AI data centres to be powered by renewable energy by 2030, Reuters writes. The appeal accompanies a June 2026 report from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) that estimates AI-related data centres could draw about 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 and that AI water use could match the basic annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people, according to coverage in The Next Web. Guterres added the initiative while speaking at London Climate Action Week and tied the transparency push to wider climate and methane action, Reuters reports.
