The power of artificial intelligence to help mitigate and manage climate change

Every day, all of us in our organizations make decisions, potentially hundreds of them—decisions that either increase or decrease sustainability. Which supplier should we choose? Are our products made of green glass or clear glass? Should we hold the meeting in London or New York?

Just as AI improves the decisions organizations make to optimize financial performance, improve processes, meet customer needs and more, it will be critical in helping them achieve their climate goals. In fact, because it can collect, complete and interpret large, complex data sets on emissions and climate impacts, AI is critical to helping manage all climate-related issues.

BCG’s (Boston Consulting Group) recent survey of 1,000 global AI and climate leaders tells us more about AI’s potential, as well as the obstacles standing in the way. The survey found that 87% of respondents believe advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, or "AI" for short, are useful tools in today's fight against climate change, but only 43% said they have any input into their own climate change efforts. visionary efforts to use artificial intelligence in.

About 87% of respondents to the BCG survey found AI to be a useful tool in combating climate change.

They believe that the greatest commercial value of artificial intelligence lies in reducing and measuring emissions. In fact, global leaders can use artificial intelligence in many different ways to achieve their goals:

Mitigation. AI can help measure emissions at macro and micro levels, reduce their impact, and remove existing emissions from the atmosphere. In our work, we find that AI can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 5% to 10% of an organization’s carbon footprint, and 2.6 to 5.3 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent if scaled up globally.

There are some exciting examples of technology already doing this work. Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions), a consortium backed by Al Gore, uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to measure emissions. Blue Sky Analytics is a member of Climate TRACE and specializes in estimating emissions from fires. Pachama uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to measure and monitor carbon stored in forests over time, identifying high-quality carbon credits.

BCG’s CO2 AI platform helps organizations measure, simulate, track and optimize their emissions at scale. This ready-to-deploy software can be used across all industries, including oil and gas, biopharmaceutical, automotive and consumer products. It not only accurately measures the emissions directly produced by a company’s own activities (Scope 1 and 2), but also quantifies the more difficult-to-measure indirect emissions produced by a company’s entire value chain (Scope 3).

Adaptability and resilience. AI is also well-suited to help predict climate-related disasters, whether by improving long-term forecasts of localized events such as sea level rise, or by upgrading early warning systems for extreme phenomena such as hurricanes or droughts. One example of how artificial intelligence and advanced analytics can help communities adapt to a changing climate is a project in Southeast Asia. By combining satellite data with advanced flood modeling, the team was able to identify critical infrastructure such as hospitals and wetlands most vulnerable to flooding, and understand where strategically placed artificial barriers could have the greatest impact.

AI can also help with vulnerability and exposure management, monitoring current crises, strengthening infrastructure (e.g. through smart irrigation), protecting populations by predicting large-scale migration patterns, and protecting by identifying and counting species Biodiversity.

Research, Finance and Education. AI can also become a tool to support climate research and modeling to understand the scale of change and inform policy decisions. By predicting carbon prices, it can play a key role in climate finance. AI can help educate the public and influence behavior through personalized tools that estimate carbon footprints or make recommendations for climate-friendly purchases. Investing in these AI-driven fundamentals will be key to the success of mitigation and adaptation and resilience efforts.

Overcoming the Barriers to Artificial Intelligence

There are so many powerful opportunities for AI to make a difference in this fight, but what’s stopping organizations from leveraging it more? While AI solutions are already well established and ready for widespread use in some areas, most existing solutions are fragmented, may not be accessible, and lack the resources to scale. Among survey respondents, 78% said barriers were due to insufficient AI expertise, 77% reported limited availability, and 67% reported a lack of confidence in AI-related data and analytics.

About 78% of respondents to the BCG survey said they don’t have access to adequate AI expertise and resources. Source: The Boston Consulting Group

Artificial intelligence is not a panacea, it is one of many tools we should be using to address this global challenge. But it can help us get on a smarter, more data-driven, faster path because we have no time to waste.

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