A new report by an international body into Ecological Footprint Initiative, Planet Alliance in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and BCG GAMMA, on artificial intelligence, AI, has revealed that it can help address issues of climate change. The report is titled: 'How AI Can Be a Powerful Tool in the Fight against Climate Change.' The report says that 87 per ce of public and private sector leaders who oversee climate and AI topics believe that AI is a valuable asset in the fight against climate change. This is also as BCG, Thursday, gathered media practitioners and experts across the world, including Africa, in an online meeting to brainstorm on the report and some of the activities it has taken to enhance the possibilities of AI advancing the fight against climate change. Managing director and partner at BCG and BCG GAMMA, Mr. Hamid Maher, said based on survey results from over 1,000 executives with decision-making authority on AI or climate-change initiatives, it finds that roughly 40 percent of organizations can envision using AI for their own climate efforts.

BRUSSELS – (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As climate change intensifies the devastation from storms, wildfires and droughts, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital tools are increasingly being seen as a way to predict and limit its impacts. Governments, tech firms and investors are showing growing interest in machine-based learning systems that use algorithms to identify patterns in data sets and make predictions, recommendations or decisions in real or virtual settings. In June, the Rise Fund, an impact investing arm of private equity firm TPG, invested $100 million in a data and AI-driven "nowcasting" system devised by Kentucky-based startup Climavision to predict weather patterns with granular accuracy. And an intergovernmental roadmap on AI's role in fighting global warming is due to launch at November's COP26 climate summit in Scotland. But AI can also be highly energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, say critics who warn that the tech could be a costly distraction from more effective ways of tackling climate change.