According to official data, intense heat was accountable for more than 20,000 deaths throughout Western Europe this summer, as the continent was hammered by a succession of brutal heatwaves and record-breaking temperatures that are expected to become more regular and intense as a result of human-caused climate change.
This is just the beginning, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report from the United Nations makes clear. Temperatures are expected to rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next 20 years, resulting in more frequent sweltering heat waves, higher floods, stronger storms, severe droughts, and drastic ecosystem shifts.
France, whose public health office recorded 10,420 additional fatalities last summer, accounted for about half, though the Covid-19 epidemic is likely to have contributed to some of these.
According to the Carlos III Health Institute, 4,655 fatalities in Spain between June – August were heat-related.
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics and Health Security Agency, there were 3,271 excess fatalities in England and Wales between June 1 and September 7, which is 6.2% more than the five-year average.
Sixteen trillion. That’s how much excessive heat induced by human-made climate change cost the world economy between 1992 and 2013, according to studies, however, the exact total may be as high as $65 trillion and begin climate risk. Extreme heat influences human health, productivity, and agricultural output, all of which have an economic impact. The weight of this problem falls disproportionately on the world’s poorest people, who often have made the smallest contributions to global warming and bear the brunt of its effects, as is the case with many other climate risk-related repercussions.
Businesses now face danger from climate change/ business climate risks. All of this highlights how urgent it is to stop these climate risks. We must keep up our efforts to halt climate risks. But we also need to adjust to a world that is changing quickly. When it comes to climate risks, most companies feel it will have a little immediate impact on them. However, current research indicates that climate hazards pose a significant commercial risk.
What are your plans for this? Ai arrives to help. But the question resurfaces. What exactly is Ai?
In this article, we will describe what AI is and how AI can assist, help businesses better recognise climate risks and threats, and how to apply AI to your organisation.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the replication of human intellect in robots that are trained to think like people and copy their activities.
Our daily activities are mostly driven by AI technology from dawn to night. When we wake up, many of us go for our phones or laptops to begin our day. This has become routine and crucial to how we function in decision-making, planning, and information-seeking.
AI-based solutions must be more effective and less expensive.
Every industry will witness the battle of the bots. How will GE’s AI compete with Siemens’ AI? On the Jobs to be Done, they will compete.
This indicates that over time, all AI engineers will recognise the value of the Jobs to be Done Theory and its these 6 fundamental principles:
- People purchase goods and services to complete a “job.”
- Products that succeed in the marketplace assist customers in completing tasks more effectively and inexpensively.
- Jobs to be done is a stable unit of analysis since it persists across time.
- An alternative method of comprehending consumer wants is through a comprehension of the Jobs to Be Done.
- Jobs to be done is a functional task that is also linked to emotional and social tasks.
- A task is never completed without a process (to make progress).
How Can Artificial Intelligence Be Used to Combat Climate Change/ Climate risks?
Climate data suppression – However, these conclusions are based on huge volumes of complicated and different data sources, such as satellites, GPS, and historical weather data and images. Businesses can access and analyse these datasets in a more manageable way with the aid of AI and machine learning.
“With AI, businesses can also construct complex models that employ machine learning to swiftly quantify the environmental effect of a certain set of business processes,” argues Modestino. “Having effective machine learning models can assist them in optimising their operations to maximise profit while preserving a certain climate objective.”
AI to maintain operations in the face of climate risks
Climate risks are likely to be a significant economic disruptor, with the potential financial effect of climate risk projected to be in the billions for the US economy alone. Businesses will suffer significant supply chain and manufacturing disruptions in the next decades. Despite this, just 33% of business executives include climate risks in their company plans.
AI can help businesses identify where these disruptions will occur by highlighting operational weaknesses caused by climate risks. By incorporating complicated data sources into visual risk maps, business executives can comprehend how the complex dynamics of climate change negatively influence corporate assets and better resist shocks.
For example, Esri, a pioneer in geographic information system (GIS) software, is using digital twins to estimate climate risks. Digital twins are digital replicas of operations or physical assets. They may analyze risks, such as flood vulnerability, to vital company assets in near real-time by leveraging data and AI. This enables vulnerabilities to be addressed and preemptively strengthened, as well as preventative maintenance to be carried out.
However, like with AI for climate adaptation for governments, access to such AI tools for enterprises must be thoroughly evaluated. Organisations that fully utilize AI for climate adaptation are few and far between. The continuous development of these applications and access to this technology are both necessary for making it usable, but more international cooperation is also needed.
The next step
These are two developing fundamental topics in which AI may be utilized for climate adaptation. Many additional intriguing uses are emerging and must be expedited, such as the use of AI to account for climate risks in financial products or the use of AI for proactive humanitarian operations.
AI for climate adaptation is still in its infancy, with many attempts relying on advanced data analytics. To properly utilise the real potential of AI for climate adaptation, such as synthetic data and predictive modelling, major impediments must be solved collaboratively. Currently, limitations in data compatibility, access to current and new AI and machine learning (ML) models, computing resources to run these complex models, technical skills to derive actionable insights, and domain and management experience to make proper decisions are hindering the widespread use of AI in climate adaptation.
Fortunately, there is a global willingness to collaborate on this endeavour and overcome the innovation gap to speed up the appropriate use of AI for climate adaptation at scale, decreasing the danger of maladaptation.
Where do I begin?
Having a clear strategy for extreme weather and climate risk change is no longer a luxury. They will play an important role in facilitating businesses to function, operate, and even grow.
The first stage is to identify possible climate risks in your company’s operations, ranging from resource shortages to the possibility of logistics interruptions.
The following stage is to examine prospective opportunities. How may altering your sourcing/production/distribution tactics reduce your climate risk while also increasing your profit line? What impact may these developments have on your company’s long-term sustainability strategies?
As it continues to affect people all over the world, it’s becoming clear that a warming planet poses a serious threat to business operations. Advanced technologies and methods, such as geospatial analysis, are still in their infancy, and we anticipate that there will be much more room for innovation in the coming years.
Conclusion
AI for climate adaptation is still in its infancy, with many attempts relying on advanced data analytics. To properly utilise the real potential of AI for climate adaptation, such as synthetic data and predictive modelling use, major impediments must be solved collaboratively. Currently, limitations in data compatibility, access to current and new AI and machine learning (ML) models, computing resources to run these complex models, technical skills to derive actionable insights, and domain and management experience to make proper policy choices are hindering the mainstream use of AI in climate adaptation.
Jobs to be done offers a fresh framework and perspective that can help a business advance its comprehension of customer needs and bring predictability to innovation.
In today’s world, AI is a game-changing vital enabler with the ability to accelerate humanity’s response to climate risk changes. With AI, we have the opportunity to create a more robust future for all of us. As the impacts of climate risks become more pervasive and severe, we must continue to invest in and support climate-tech firms which use artificial intelligence to discover answers.