AI’s Potential to Tackle Climate Change

14 Dec 2023

Already, artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to forecast climate trends and extreme weather events, boost crop yields, minimize water consumption, and optimize renewable energy systems. In this context, it comes as no surprise that during COP28, the United Nations climate conference in Dubai AI was a main topic. 

Throughout the event, world leaders, renowned AI experts and entrepreneurs shared their views about how AI can help to tackle climate change, from producing insights about how to fight the rise of global temperatures to reducing emissions in manufacturing and helping locate new renewable energy projects. 

At VASS we work towards creating a positive impact in the world thanks to technology, as AI producers we believe in the power of AI, when used in a responsible and ethical way. We delved into this topic a few months ago in our article, “The Role of AI in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals”, underlining the huge potential for good that AI can bring as we step into the future.

There were many interesting AI-related announcements at the COP28. On November 30th, the first day of the summit, the UN announced a partnership with Microsoft on an AI tool designed to monitor if countries are sticking to their commitments to cut back on fossil fuel emissions. This partnership, which addresses a challenging problem in global climate diplomacy, emphasizes the critical role of AI in improving environmental accountability.  

It was also announced that the UN Climate Change Technology Executive Committee (TEC) has launched the AI Innovation Grand Challenge in collaboration with Enterprise Neurosystem, a non-profit open-source AI community, to identify and support the development of AI-powered solutions for climate action in developing countries.

Another announcement was that IBM will collaborate with the UAE’s Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) to apply foundation models to the mapping of urban heat islands, which are places with higher temperatures compared to surrounding locations. This is great news, as understanding this information allows cities and urban planners to apply initiatives to minimize heat and its environmental effect by identifying hotspots.

Environmental organizations were also present at COP28 and were supportive of AI. One of the groups, We Don’t Have Time, even developed a series of films portraying young activists asking for more immediate climate action, but with a twist. They used AI to present themselves as middle-aged people, as if they were communicating from the future.

Overall, COP28 demonstrated the importance of AI in moulding our future. Many events this year have highlighted the vital role of AI in the worldwide effort to solve climate change, the defining challenge of our time. We are positive that, as the world hopes for and works towards a more sustainable future, the incorporation of AI into business processes and climate change policies is a beacon of hope in the goal of a greener planet. 

We at VASS are here to assist our customers as they navigate this scenario by minimizing their carbon footprint and contributing to a more sustainable future by using the power of cutting-edge AI technologies. Becoming a NetZero company is also one of our ongoing initiatives which is why we are launching several initiatives, such as mapping setting indicators as well as implementing a variety of carbon-cutting measures.

We are looking forward to working with our partners and stakeholders to create a more sustainable future for everyone and glad to see this groundbreaking technology taking centre stage at COP28.