Artificial Intelligence, Climate Governance, and Environmental Justice: Comparative Perspectives from the United Kingdom and Africa
Abstract
This paper examines the recent role of artificial intelligence (AI) in climate governance and its impacts on environmental justice with the United Kingdom and Africa as a comparative case study. As AI is increasingly incorporated into environmental monitoring and climate modelling, and into decision-making, it is often viewed as a means of making climate mitigation and adaptation more efficient. Nevertheless, it is implemented in uneven global conditions under the influence of variations in technological capacities, availability of data, and institutional coordination. This poses critical questions regarding the distribution of the benefits and impacts of AI-led climate governance across regions. The paper uses a qualitative and comparative approach to analyse the policy integration strategies, governance structures and capacity conditions that affect the application of AI in both situations. The findings suggest that the United Kingdom has a comparatively well-integrated policy frameworks and institutional settings, which can enable data-driven solutions to climate governance, but many African settings are limited by infrastructure, funding, and fragmentation of governance. These gaps characterize the extent to which AI can be optimally utilized in addressing climate problems. This article posits that AI is not a neutral technology, but it is an element of existing structural conditions, which impact access, use, and outcomes. Its inclusion within climate governance can, therefore, solidify existing inequalities in the environmental risk, adaptive capacity and participation. The paper concludes that the interaction of AI and climate governance cannot be analyzed without addressing larger issues of capacity and justice, particularly in the form of offering emerging technologies to improve more inclusive and equitable environmental outcomes.
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