COP28: Why AI is the best ally to combat climate change

Artificial Intelligence has emerged as a powerful tool to address the challenges of climate change. From climate modelling to energy management, optimizing renewable energy and adapting to extreme weather events, AI is deploying its power to improve our fight against climate change.

AI methods based on machine learning allow us to model climate and weather, identify patterns and make accurate predictions of changes in global temperature by analyzing large amounts of weather and climate data.

Beyond the direct application of AI techniques to model and predict the climate, AI methods can be applied to industries or sectors that have a negative environmental impact to enable the reduction of GHG emissions. According to a report commissioned by Microsoft from PwC, the use of AI in environmental use cases could contribute up to 5.2 billion USD to the global economy by 2030 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4%.

“We need to think broader about the role of tech to accelerate climate change demands, technology needs to be sustainable and environmentally friendly. Data centers and cloud solutions have to be manufactured with low-carbon materials. It’s our responsibility to provide green data centers. For that we have to measure the environmental footprint,” said Sherif Tawfik, Chief Sustainability Commercial Officer, Microsoft Central, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

According to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which shows that AI has the potential to help mitigate 5-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 — the equivalent of the total annual emissions of the European Union.

“From a data and AI perspective, technology is here to drive visibility, every company is focused on data and addressing the data challenge should help us to be clear about what data is the best o understand our sustainability challenge and green IT. The legal aspect of AI is understanding how AI is coming up with an answer; if we talk about responsible AI, the AI progression has changed everything in the last twelve months and responsible AI has to be the foundation to be there in the right way,” explained Jack Azagury, Group Chief Executive, Strategy&Consulting, Accenture.

How can technology and innovation drive collaboration and sustainability efforts? “The ICT sector is responsible for around 3% of the emissions, the possibilities of using technology to reduce those emissions can go up to 20%. Technology is critical to reduce those emissions, when we talk about green energy we need to talk about energy efficiency and reducing the level of consumption, both are equally important, 40% of the energy is being wasted, but what if we can reduce that?” Salvador asked. “For example, 40% of CO2 emissions are coming from buildings around the world, my point is as a tech company we need to emphasise in how to create efficient energy” added Salvador Anglada, CEO of e& enterprise.