Adapting to climate change

The United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Net Zero Strategy by the UK government and COP26 reports; all point in the same direction: the world has to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and immediately scale up climate response strategies. Mitigation and adaptation options will effectively reduce climate risks posed by natural disasters like rising heat, drought and floods while building energy-efficient solutions for biodiversity, food security, health and carbon sequestration. Mitigation strategies focus on managing the causes or minimising the impacts of climate change, whereas adaptation strategies lead to an adjustment in systems and social behaviours that restrict potential damages and maximise opportunities to prepare for a greener future. AI is already playing critical roles in addressing climate risks through applications of advanced methods like environment monitoring, forecasting future events and building better policies assisted by microsimulation techniques. These developments have laid a strong foundation for long-term mitigation and adaptation options, rather than only dealing with near-term risks reactively. Interdisciplinary approaches will remain crucial in engaging domain experts and local communities with sustainable response plans, scaling up the adoption of successful measures from different sectors.

Contributing to Sustainable Development Goals

The UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development urges all strategies for climate change to go hand-in-hand with ending poverty and other societal deprivations. AI-based responses to climate change, therefore, need to be aligned with sustainable development goals, going beyond building high-tech predictive technologies. Food security, responsible production and consumption, quality education, urgent infrastructure and industry, affordable energy and reduced inequalities are some of the biggest societal concerns that are worsened by climate change, and when not addressed, these further add to the climate-related risks (Vinuesa el al. 2020).

Solutions to climate change that integrate complex knowledge from these social and sustainable development areas can be potentially accelerated through AI technologies. ASG’s work is not only demonstrating the success in this area but also extending our considerations for fully embracing AI-based approaches to climate change by drawing insights from the natural, social and digital worlds, and how they interact with each other. Building on the successful implementations in the areas of monitoring and forecasting, researchers have already delivered adaptation solutions in a variety of sectors, such as providing energy flexibility through EnergyFlex and Solar Panel forecasting and limiting the use of greenhouse gas. Several more AI/ML projects are uncovering the potential of AI applications in enhancing mitigation plans such as by informing agriculture and food production patterns, infrastructure retrofitting, reducing waste and repurposing materials. To ensure the success of all climate response plans, many projects are dedicated to enhancing public awareness of data science, empowering them to understand the advantages and limitations of AI applications through public engagement, education and capacity building.

Generalisable, accessible and explainable AI tools can benefit all stakeholders in research, government, industry, education and society by enabling them to make data-informed decisions for combating the impact of climate change. Amplified by the ongoing efforts at the Turing more broadly, AI will massively improve the effectiveness of climate response plans in the UK, and with their potential to be adopted worldwide will contribute to building a sustainable future for everyone.