Can artificial intelligence aid climate solutions in the Middle East? - Al-Monitor
Can artificial intelligence aid climate solutions in the Middle East? - Al-Monitor: Independent, trusted coverage of the Middle East
Can artificial intelligence aid climate solutions in the Middle East?
Al-Monitor Pro Members
Dr. Karen E. Young
Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University
Dec. 22, 2023
Robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are relevant to creating change and efficiencies in our energy sector. For oil and gas-dependent political economies, especially those in the Middle East, the notion of increased productivity and automation in small labor forces with gaps in research and development communities is especially attractive. However, expectations that AI might be able to leap-frog current growth trajectories and increase rates of GDP growth and labor productivity growth, specifically in its use by Gulf states and their investment vehicles, may be wishful thinking. There are uses for AI as applied to shared global challenges of climate change. And while there are very real considerations in the risks of AI — particularly in regards to privacy, redundancies in labor markets, and human capacity to manage the evolution of AI outside of its original purpose — the use of the technology is accelerating and diversifying where it receives investment and research attention (and the GCC is now a leading ecosystem of AI), making the international governance of the technology difficult to monitor and police. Moreover, geopolitics in the use of AI and component materials, specifically chips, has become a barrier to cooperation and co-investment for some firms based in the Gulf.
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”