Session
Organizer 1: Nidhi Singh, Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India
Organizer 2: Jayanti Jaya, National Law University Odisha
Speaker 1: Nidhi Singh, Government, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Avinash Dadhich, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Jayanti Jaya, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Anurag Vijay, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Jayanti Jaya, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Jayanti Jaya, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Jayanti Jaya, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Round Table - Circle - 60 Min
The present proposal seeks to answer the following policy questions:
• What Artificial Intelligence can for Climate Change, and what Climate Change can do for Artificial Intelligence?
• How the growth of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning may affect global GHG emissions? [To explore how AI can help in reducing emissions from carbon intensified sector like cement, iron & steel, non-metallic minerals and chemicals]
• How Artificial Intelligence can help in electricity generation from renewable source?
• How can we collect data in a huge and a diverse country like India regarding the temperature and humidity using Artificial Intelligence? [ It will help in predicting the weather conditions and can help us in creating preparedness to fight heat waves, floods and cyclone.]
• What are the downsides of using Artificial Intelligence as a tool in combating Climate Change?
• What policy levers can be adopted for better understanding and shaping the effects of Machine learning on Climate Change mitigation?
• How can Artificial Intelligence be though through in a more environment friendly way?
Connection with previous Messages: This session builds on the previous year’s Internet Governance Forum IGF 2021 messages developed from the Main Session on ‘The impact of environment data on sustainability and internet governance’ and further builds upon the following key takeaways from this session:
• Promoting capacity building especially within the Global South to minimize climate change impact and accelerate adaptation.
• Collection and sharing of environmental data openly across communities, and particularly impactful when modern technology is coupled with indigenous knowledge and methodologies.
• New technology systems make it possible to access information target at the broadly understood public.
• Using artificial intelligence and robots to detect fire outbreaks for countryside conservation
AI is gradually becoming an essential part of the internet. The benefits of internet cannot be accessed by many due to the prevailing inequality in the society. As IGF 2022 endeavors to make these technology and related information available to all by the framing a policy involving the participation of every stakeholder, the present workshop shows how AI can help in making these technologies accessible and also protecting the downtrodden section of the society from an imminent threat like climate change.
2. Zero Hunger
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
13. Climate Action
Targets: The workshop as such specifically addresses the following three SDG goals:
(a) SDG 2: End hunger, food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
The ultimate impact of Climate Change is on human existence. It has somewhat adversely impacted the environment and affected food security. Ensuring a balanced application of AI in mitigation of climate change can help improve agricultural production, thus aid in reducing hunger and achieving food security.
(b) SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
It is quite evident from the examples cited above that AI is used in number of technologies for better efficiency and reduced work-load. It definitely helps in optimization of energy by pushing reliance on renewable energy and building energy efficient infrastructure. All of this enhance the possibility of building an affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for community at large.
(c) SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Climate Change can be curbed only by following certain paths like clean energy, increasing forest cover and equal opportunity of growth. The workshop aims at highlighting the role of AI in fighting climate change. Conventional methods deployed to mitigate climate change has given limited success. Application of AI through smarter technologies can help increase efficiencies and reduce wastages that can eventually help in achieving the objective of reduction of GHGs and improved environment.
Description:
Today, emerging technologies have a role to play in every sphere of human life. Artificial Intelligence as a tool is seen to have application in judiciary, administration, policy making, cyber security, etc. Another interesting where the role of AI has evolved is in mitigation of Climate change. The causes and effects of Climate change are as such global in nature. Emissions happening anywhere endanger people everywhere. As a result, since 1979, climate and weather extremes have caused 2 million deaths and mounting economic losses. Additionally, in the future, climate change is expected to cause 250,000 deaths per year. However, despite the urgency of climate change, global efforts towards climate change mitigation have been ineffectual. The question is, why? In the recent past, we have adopted conventional methods to combat climate change. However, with the emergence of disruptive technologies, AI has been seen as a potential instrument to address the problem of climate change in a smart and effective manner. For example: AI based applications can help in designing more energy efficient buildings and machines that help in power conservation and reduce its wastage. It can also help in optimization of renewable energy by feeding solar and wind power into electricity grid. The application of AI in various domains can also help in overall reduction of Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions.
Like every other country India also took some ambitious targets like achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2070 and making half of the energy generation from renewable resources. As a founding member of the Paris Agreement, India has indeed taken several steps to cut down its emissions, however there is still a long way to go. Our proposal, through this workshop intends to look into how Artificial Intelligence as an emerging technology can help in several ways in achieving these ambitious targets. Given that climate change is an existential threat we need better technologies and accurate data to deal with this evolving crisis.
Nevertheless, there is a flip side too of using AI as a tool to mitigate Climate Change, as it comes at a cost to the planet. For example: Algorithms running AI and processing huge amounts of data can lead to huge energy consumption which can in turn intensify the damage caused due to Climate Change. The real flex is to balance the benefits of AI in combating climate change and understanding the growing carbon footprint of AI.
• The primary outcome of the session shall be to give a holistic view to the stakeholders and audiences on the benefits and cons of using Artificial Intelligence in solving the problem of Climate Change. The discussion shall not be premised solely on scholarly articles but also on empirical research and findings done in this area. The sessions aims to weigh the possible areas where application of AI is seen across continents.
• The second objective is to explore ways in which AI can be used in reduction of GHG but to help solve the problem of energy poverty. Climate Change is having adverse effect on the entire human community, but the hardest hit community will be marginalized section of the society. Using AI can also increase the accessibility of the benefit of protection of technologies to the less privileged section of the society. The idea is to brain storm discussions and capture the interest of the Internet Governance community on understanding AI for better environment friendly ways.
• The third expected outcome of this session shall be to prepare a comprehensive report on AI and Climate Change based on overall discussion and feedback received at the IGF 2022. The publication of the report is another yardstick that we aim to achieve through this session.
Link for previous IGF Session Report 2021: https://www.intgovforum.org/es/content/igf-2021-–-day-1-–-lightning-talk-60-the-role-of-privacy-in-antitrust-policy-in-highly-data
Hybrid Format: We would conduct a workshop discussing the areas where AI can help in curbing the effects of climate change and its better management. We plan to use zoom or Wooclap as a session, a user-friendly platform. The introductory session shall apprise the participants about the advantages, disadvantages and the contemporary research/work on AI. Participation from the audience will be strongly encouraged. It is not our purpose to overload the audience with information, rather we aim to keep them engaged. We plan to do this also by showing a PowerPoint presentation, as visual support to our narrative, to improve the audience's focus. This shall help us in holding the attention span of the attendees and in simplifying the technical and legal elements of AI and Climate Change that are essential to the dialogue. In the workshop we shall also attempt to simplify the technical aspect of AI to apply it in various fields. And for this simplification we will have AI experts on board. We shall also invite suggestions at the end of workshop and present it as a part of the outcome report. The session will be followed by a Q/A session where the participants could ask questions and debate on the issues pointed out and add their regional insights to the discussion.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.