Women and girls represent 80% of people displaced by climate disasters, yet their lived experiences are rarely included in the artificial intelligence systems now deciding how the world responds to environmental crises. This gap in data and decision-making means AI tools designed to predict disasters, price insurance, forecast energy needs, and allocate resources may be systematically overlooking the survival priorities that matter most to those harmed most by climate change. The stakes are enormous. By 2050, climate displacement could push up to 158 million more women and girls into poverty, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, AI systems are becoming more powerful and increasingly shaping institutional responses to environmental emergencies. When women's voices and experiences are missing from the data feeding these algorithms, the systems themselves learn to prioritize the wrong things. What Happens When Women's Experiences Are Left Out of Climate AI? Pavithra Priyadarshini Selvakumar, a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University's Climate School, has documented how this gap manifests in real-world consequences. In climate disasters, AI systems trained on incomplete data are more likely to prioritize asset recovery and infrastructure restoration over critical survival issues that disproportionately affect women and families. "How Can AI Address Climate Justice When Women's Voices Are Silenced?" asked Selvakumar in her research, highlighting the fundamental problem: if women's experiences are missing from the data and the decisions, humans will keep building systems that get the future wrong. Pavithra Priyadarshini Selvakumar, Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University's Climate School The gap extends beyond what data is included. It also reflects who is excluded from building these systems. In the United States, roughly 58.87 million women hold jobs highly vulnerable to automation, including clerical work, retail, and administrative roles. Women are also less likely to be trained on generative AI tools and less likely to work in the AI industry itself. How to Build More Equitable AI for Climate Action Experts and advocates have outlined concrete steps needed to ensure women's voices shape the future of climate AI: - Equitable Access: Provide digital infrastructure and AI education specifically designed for women, ensuring they can participate in and understand the systems affecting their communities. - Governance Participation: Empower women's participation in technology development and governance decisions, so their perspectives inform how AI systems are designed and deployed. - Data Center Regulation: Implement federal oversight of data center construction and expansion with explicit attention to environmental and social impacts on vulnerable populations. - Accountability Frameworks: Establish mechanisms to prevent environmental burdens from being shifted onto already vulnerable communities, particularly women of color in environmentally burdened areas. Manuela Veloso, Professor Emeritus in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, has spent decades researching AI systems and emphasizes that the technology itself is neutral. The outcomes depend entirely on human choices. "It's the human mind that conceived such technology, and it's up to the human mind to make good use of it," said Veloso, adding that "AI participation shouldn't be limited to a small group of technologists, it should reflect the communities they impact the most." Manuela Veloso, Professor Emeritus in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University The physical infrastructure of AI itself poses direct risks to women in marginalized communities. Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous women are more likely to live in environmentally burdened areas where AI data centers are being built. These massive digital warehouses emit pollution, increase energy costs, and consume water in drought-stricken regions. LaTricea Adams, founder of Young, Gifted, and Green, has documented how this compounds existing health disparities. Memphis, Tennessee, where the community has been fighting xAI's Colossus supercomputer since 2024, is already the asthma capital of Tennessee. Additional pollution from data centers increases risks of miscarriages, low birth rates, and premature births, complications Black women already face at higher rates. The venture capital funding landscape further excludes women from shaping AI's future. Female founders leading AI startups receive significantly less funding compared to the billions flowing into the sector overall. Alex Karp, CEO of AI software company Palantir, acknowledged that AI technology "increases the economic power of vocationally trained working-class, often male, voters," while it "decreases the power of highly educated, often female, voters". Alex Karp, CEO of AI software company Palantir Senator Bernie Sanders and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act to address these harms by calling for an immediate halt to data center construction or expansion until federal regulation is in place. Veloso stresses that this is not a women's issue alone. "Women are not just spectators of the future, we are actors of the future," she noted. Women often serve as the foundation holding families and communities together, so what benefits women benefits everyone. Veloso As America stands at a major turning point in 2026, the decisions made now about who participates in AI development and whose experiences inform climate algorithms will shape outcomes for generations. Getting AI right, experts argue, means getting women right from the start.
