G20 Interfaith Forum to debate AI, climate costs and planetary limits

The G20 Interfaith Forum will host a July 9 webinar on whether the global AI build-out can coexist with a livable planet, bringing together experts in sustainability, ethics and economics. Panelists will weigh AI’s environmental footprint against its potential to help monitor ecosystems and manage natural resources.

Why it matters: - The AI boom is colliding with rising concerns about energy use, water demand and mineral extraction tied to data centers and chip production. - The webinar will focus on a central question for governments and industry: whether AI can be expanded without deepening environmental harm. - Panelists will also debate who should decide what AI is for and how it should be governed.

What happened: - The G20 Interfaith Forum will host “AI and the Planet” on July 9 as the fourth event in its eight-part AI and Human Flourishing webinar series. - The free webinar begins July 9, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. EDT. - Audrey E. Kitagawa, J.D. will moderate the discussion. - Registration is available through the webinar link.

The details: - David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, called for a pause on major new AI expansion until the public decides what the technology should serve. - Korten argued that AI is part of humanity’s shared information commons and should be governed as such. - Arthur Dahl, president of the International Environment Forum, said AI’s environmental and social costs are often ignored when systems are built for short-term returns. - Dahl warned that commercial pressure could create a “fatal technology dependency” that benefits a few and leaves people passive consumers. - John C. Havens said the AI debate has been shaped for decades by a narrow, GDP-driven idea of intelligence. - Havens called for ecological and human flourishing to become the core of AI design and deployment. - Havens said the term “Artificial Intelligence” originated as a marketing term in 1956. - The release said Havens’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect his employer’s official policy or position. - Kitagawa is founder and president of the International Academy for Multicultural Cooperation and chair of the IF20 Anti-Racism Initiative. - Dahl is a retired senior official of the UN Environment Programme and a biologist trained at Stanford University and UC Santa Barbara. - Korten is founder and president of the Living Economies Forum, co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, and a member of the Club of Rome. - Havens is founding executive director of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and leads sustainability work at the IEEE Standards Association.

Between the lines: - The panel frames AI not just as a technical or economic issue, but as a question of values, governance and planetary limits. - The event also reflects a broader push to connect faith, ethics and public policy with emerging technology debates. - By placing sustainability at the center, the forum is challenging the usual focus on speed, scale and profit in AI development.

What's next: - The forum will continue its AI and Human Flourishing series with this July 9 discussion as one of eight planned webinars. - The discussion may shape how interfaith and policy audiences talk about AI’s environmental tradeoffs going forward. - More information is available at the G20 Interfaith Forum website.