Addressing climate change in the age of artificial intelligence: three registers of human rights struggles

Amidst heightened hype in the capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to address climate change, this article begins by elaborating some of the risks and concerns that arise from AI technologies’ extractive climate consumptionism, deployment within climate mitigation and adaptation projects, entanglement in processes of climate securitisation, and contribution to climate discourse. The article then turns to explore the extent to which human rights law (HRL) may be harnessed to address such risks and concerns across three registers of human rights struggles – argumentative, aesthetic, and affective. The article emphasises that if HRL is to be oriented towards addressing the risks and concerns that arise at the intersection of climate change and AI, it is crucial that the terms of human rights mobilisations are driven and informed by the communities most and disproportionately impacted by climate applications of AI across the entire AI lifecycle.