From Urgency to Action: Connecting Human Rights, AI, and Climate
Wynn Kwan
Both human rights and responsible, ethical AI have remained intertwined this year. Earlier this month, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk called on governments and AI companies to ensure AI governance keeps up with the technology’s rapid development and its growing and wide-ranging human rights risks—from cutting off access to water, power, and financial services to enabling greater and more extreme warfare, to AI-enabled surveillance eroding privacy.
“We are on the cusp of irreversible change, affecting not just us but generations of humanity to come,” Türk warned.
As business leaders and advocates descended on NYC for Climate Week, that sense of urgency parallels how some stakeholders view the climate change landscape. A September UN report stated that the world is on track to cross the 1.5°C global warming threshold in the coming years. UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen emphasized, “Now is the time we must double down on climate action. We can – and must – get on the right path. By cutting greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening resilience and adaptation, and ensuring exceedance of 1.5°C is as small and short as possible.”
Both climate change and AI require addressing complex, far-reaching risks. Türk calls for collaboration to tackle AI, a principle that should also apply to climate change: “No country can govern this technology alone. No company should be able to decide by itself which risks the world must accept. No person should be required to surrender their human rights in exchange for claims of technological progress.” The need for complex, cross-sectoral intervention highlights the continued need for the work we do at Future 500 to bridge the bridges that enable social and environmental progress. Without it, we’ll be incapable of turning urgency into practical actions for the benefit of humankind.
Future 500 is a non-profit consultancy that builds trust between companies, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good. We specialize in stakeholder engagement, sustainability strategy, and responsible communication. From stakeholder mapping to materiality assessments, partnership development to activist engagement, target setting to CSR reporting strategy, we empower our partners with the skills and relationships needed to systemically tackle today's most pressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges.
Want to learn more? Reach out any time.
