AI and tech can help mitigate the climate crisis

Every time a natural disaster destroys lives, homes and critical infrastructure – as the floods in Valencia, Spain have done most recently, with more than 200 people dying and thousands displaced – the need to take action, raise funds and collectively address climate change comes into even sharper focus.

Over the past decades, certain themes have remained constant. These include the need for public-private partnerships between stakeholders to raise capital so that climate solutions can be adopted and scaled up, which could then slow the warming and degradation of the planet. The need to raise vast sums of money required to implement climate solutions has been well-documented but to keep them going consistently for decades, until the crucial goals of net zero are achieved, are as pressing.

In recent years, given the undeniable march of technology, artificial intelligence has gained currency as one solution to the climate crisis. On Sunday, it was prominent on the agenda at the Enact Majlis in Abu Dhabi, which brought together global leaders across the fields of energy, technology, sustainability and investment to discuss the solutions needed to realise AI’s full potential. Building partnerships to develop solutions at the nexus of sustainability, technology and energy is vital.

It is therefore telling that, as decarbonisation remains among the most important missions for the energy industry, this year’s Adipec, the annual four-day energy conference and exhibition in Abu Dhabi that begins today, will focus on AI’s role. This week, energy ministers, policymakers, academics and domain experts, chief executives and other influential figures in the oil and gas industry will meet at a time when a number of challenges in the area of climate mitigation remain.

One among these challenges is the need to reduce methane emissions, which would require industry-wide transformations, as Ibrahim Al Zubi, Adnoc’s group chief sustainability and ESG officer, wrote in these pages. Even as technology progresses faster than many people can keep pace with, it is perhaps unsurprising that solutions to a variety of climate challenges – including tackling carbon emissions – may lie at the cross-section of innovation, research and development.

AI, for instance, has been criticised for being energy-intensive. But if harnessed correctly, it could turn things around. That is indicated in a joint report from Adnoc, Masdar and Microsoft titled Powering Possible: AI and Energy for a Sustainable Future. It reveals many interesting possibilities, including the fact that new AI tools can detect methane leaks much more accurately than older methods, and will be crucial in meeting the global goal of cutting methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. In any part of the world struck by unusual weather patterns, be it hurricanes or floods, and with each passing year, the case for climate mitigation solutions and their implementation grows only more urgent.

The energy sector is instrumental to help mitigate some of the worst effects of these calamities. Big industry events such as Adipec serve as a platform to take forward the dialogue on finding and financing solutions for the coming climate emergency.

With time to act being finite, the lives of future generations are intricately tied to the health of the planet, a driving motivation for all parties to focus on workable, sustainable solutions.