Climate change is the major fate of our time globally; an issue that affects our and future generations’ living conditions and that needs to be resolved. Artificial intelligence is one of the pioneering technologies of our time, with the capacity to offer innovative solutions to problems ranging from cancer treatment to self-driving vehicles. So can artificial intelligence be the answer to the question of how to save the climate?
AI can of course not save the climate on its own, but more and more people are working with AI solutions for different climate challenges. Artificial intelligence may well be the shortcut we need to succeed
The possible effects of climate change are great; sometimes so large that it can be difficult to imagine what they would actually mean.
It may sound relatively harmless for the world to be a few degrees warmer, but effects such as melting polarities and rising sea levels, much more frequent heat waves and hurricanes, and reduced biodiversity and depletion of entire ecosystems will have enormous consequences for billions of people.
Stop greenhouse gas emissions
To meet the goal of halting the temperature rise at 1.5 degrees, we need to reshape the entire community, not release any fossil greenhouse gases until 2050, and zero our global emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2070. So how do we make it a reality?
Big profits to be made
The big benefits of using artificial intelligence lie in the technology’s ability to manage and find patterns, new opportunities and values in very large amounts of data at a level that we humans are nowhere near capable of managing. By allowing artificial intelligence to produce smart models based on data, we can find ways to optimize our use of resources, accelerate the development of new materials and fuels or increase productivity in, for example, food production.
is efficient food production
Increased agricultural productivity is another area where artificial intelligence can play a major role. Through precision cultivation for sustainable intensification, which means that the cultivation is adapted to the conditions in the field, the yield could be increased by about 20%. Food production accounts for 30% of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases and about 70% of water consumption, so here too there are big profits to be made by using the technology properly.
By using drones and sensors it is possible to keep track of the status of the crops being grown and to control irrigation and control. AI can also be used for decision support for cultivation. But the big gains here are still some way into the future.
For both real estate and entire cities
The real estate sector can also benefit from artificial intelligence and machine learning, in several ways. For example, we can analyze data on real estate and find patterns that show where a need for renovation will be and what needs to be done.
Opportunities to use AI exist not only for individual properties but also entire cities can benefit from and develop smart data-driven solutions that can lead to energy efficiency, less carbon dioxide emissions and better living environments
Save energy – save the climate
Precise energy efficiency is an area where machine learning and artificial intelligence are expected to have a major impact. Systems for heating, cooling and ventilation require large amounts of energy both in real estate and in the industry, and by controlling these based on data there are great opportunities for savings that benefit both the climate and economic results.
An industry that can greatly benefit from data-driven energy efficiency and which also has strong links to just artificial intelligence is the data center industry. The more applications of AI we find, the more computing power from data centers will be needed. According to a report from OpenAI released in November 2019, the amount of computing power needed to train artificial intelligence is increasing faster than ever before and has doubled every 3.4 months since 2012. The need for electricity in the data center industry (which is already a major consumer) is estimated to increase to almost 8% of global electricity generation.
AI and data centers are energy-intensive. We work hard to find more efficient algorithms and smarter ways to build and operate data centers.
Stay on earth
The potential of artificial intelligence to help us solve the climate issue is great, and even though the challenges are great and the road is long.
People are convinced that AI will be an important part of how we solve the climate issue in the future. It is talked about that AI can help us colonize other planets, but artificial intelligence has a more important task first; to help us stay on earth.
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