AI coming after climate change

Last month’s COP 27 United Nations conference on climate change called, among other, for “a giant leap on climate ambition”. As we know, human beings are not big on giant leaps to protect their planet these days. Perhaps, it is time for non-humans to show the way.

The good news is that artificial intelligence (AI) is making massive leaps in managing environmental risk. Combine that with a commitment from most major information technology companies to embrace sustainable manufacturing and operations, and the tech tools for tackling climate change should be ubiquitous.

If it hasn’t seemed that way, it is largely due to numerous disparate efforts, platforms and applications that, in themselves, don’t make a significant impact. However, more and more of the dots are being joined to paint a big picture.

A year ago, IBM launched an Environmental Intelligence Suite  that brought together AI, weather data, climate risk analytics, and carbon accounting capabilities. The intention was to help companies streamline and automate the management of environmental risks and operationalise underlying processes, including carbon accounting and reduction, to meet environmental goals.

However, COP 27 showed that even all these tech tools in combination were only part of the solution, says Solomon Assefa, vice president of IBM Research Africa. An Ethiopian with 45 patents to his name, he heads up the IBM research lab located in Wits University’s Tshimologong Precinct in Braamfontein.

“The efforts to solve climate change challenges in Africa are too big for one country or organisation to tackle alone,” he says. “Partnerships underpinned by green IT technology solutions are key to helping African countries address the effects of climate change and meet their sustainable development goals, including access to clean sustainable energy.

“It will take all of us working together and supplementing each other’s strengths to overcome these challenges.”

At COP 27, IBM announced a number of organisations that would join its Sustainability Accelerator, which brings together advanced technologies and an “ecosystem of experts”. These included the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Environment Without Borders Foundation.

One of the UNDP projects aims to increase access to sustainable, affordable and reliable energy in African countries, focusing on “those furthest left behind”. It aims to forecast electricity access to better guide policy and investment decisions, using both UNDP’s technical knowledge and access to IBM technologies.

In Malawi, an IBM collaboration with Heifer International is developing scalable and affordable digital solutions to equip farmers’ cooperatives with weather and crop yield forecasts.

Even natural disasters can be brought under the ambit of AI, says Assefa.

“Floods are a major climate hazard on the continent. To help countries be better prepared to address them, IBM’s flood risk modelling capabilities – that include both AI models and AI-enhanced physical simulations – leverage geospatial data layers such as soil type, land use, and elevation, along with rainfall data, to predict areas at risk of flooding using physical simulations.

“Through our partnership with the (South African) Agricultural Research Council, we are using these AI-powered weather generator models to help African countries enhance their capability to plan, prepare and respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters.”

These initiatives appear to be only the beginning of a relentless cycle of innovation to address climate change. Assefa says IBM is not standing still.

“We’re using AI and hybrid cloud to accelerate discovery of climate mitigation and adaptation solutions. We’re improving carbon emission performance through optimisation and capture and preparing enterprises for the impact of climate change. We believe our technology and expertise can help companies identify and better understand how their own work impacts nature together with the steps they can take to mitigate their own carbon footprint.”

That brings climate change full circle to the business world. It is not only the tech tools that count, but also a willingness to use them.

* Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee