Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High Level Champion for Egypt and UN Special Envoy on Financing 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, confirmed the importance of relying more on technology to confront climate change, predict its risks, and develop more accurate models of action to face these risks and mitigate their impacts.
This came during his participation in a session entitled “Harnessing the potential of AI for urban climate action” organized by Google, Centre for Public Impact at the New School and World Resources Institute, with the participation of Josh Sorin, Director of Climate Action at Centre for Public Impact at New School, Dr. Renée T. White Provost, Executive Vice President, and Professor of Sociology at The New School, Joel Towers University Professor at Parsons School of Design, Rohit Aggarwala, Commissioner of NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice, Gino van Begin, Secretary General of Local Governments for Sustainability, Jaya Dhindaw, Interim Director of World Resources Institute, and Alex Diaz, Senior Manager of AI for Social Good at Google.
Mohieldin stated that AI can contribute to a better understanding of some climate change related matters, such as knowing more about the role of the oceans in the transport and absorption of heat, their vulnerability to climate change, and their response to various environmental and climate phenomena. AI can also contribute to enhancing the ability of satellites to monitor and evaluate the impacts of climate change such as monitoring forest fires and identifying resources of carbon dioxide in the environment.
He explained that the inclusion of AI in various rapidly changing climate elements, such as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, temperatures, precipitation levels and wind patterns, will help to collect and analyze data at a faster pace and then make decisions and implement the necessary actions to cope with the impacts of climate change.
In this context, Mohieldin referred to the cooperation between the HLCs and Google to release a map application that helps predict the potential risks of climate change and proposes the best actions to address them, saying that he is looking forward to announce the action plan for the release of this application during COP28 in Dubai.
The climate champion stated that AI can play an important role in reducing carbon emissions by including it in the activities of transition to decarbonized economies, adding that AI can contribute to accelerating the efforts of cities to adapt to climate change by including it in the activities of the Race to Resilience and the areas of work stipulated by Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda.
Mohieldin underlined the need to use AI in mobilizing climate finance and channel it to the most in need areas of work, as well as using it to accelerate innovation and enhance community participation in financing and implementing climate action.
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