28 Sept 2025
Can AI truly help us build sustainable futures?
Or will geopolitics and extractive models exacerbate existing inequities and lock us into new cycles of harm?
What would it take to ensure global green-digital (twin) transitions also deliver digital justice?
These are the questions we’ll explore in the session, AI for Sustainable Futures: From Green-Digital Transitions to Global Digital Justice at the UNESCO AI4IA Online Conference 2025.
Co-led by the DepHUB's Shamira Ahmed and Meena Lysko from Move Beyond Consulting, the discussion:
 Unpacked how AI is more than a tool → AI systems mirror oppressive historic power structures and inequities unless designed with fairness and inclusivity. Without decolonial approaches, the twin transition will contribute to extractive global value chains.
Explored the Paradox of AI for the Global South→ Weak governance and external infrastructure reliance deepen path dependencies when locals lack control of data and compute power. Locally led AI initiatives strengthen innovation-ecosystem resilience and digital sovereignty.
Examined lessons from the global plastics value chain, where fragmented multilateral governance, ex ante approaches, and end-of-pipe fixes entrench harm-parallels we must avoid in AI. Only holistic governance across the value chain can deliver a just twin transition
Highlighted insights from the United Nations Internet Governance Forum 2024 Policy Network on AI reports (The AI Governance We Want), emphasising liability, sustainability, interoperability, and labour protections.
Our key message: Digital Justice is non-negotiable.
Building sustainable digital futures requires transversal, multi-stakeholder, anticipatory governance to ensure green-digital transitions are not only about innovation, geopolitical heft, and efficiency, but also about equity, justice, and flourishing for people and the planet.
Find the recording, here