AI Applications in Addressing Climate Threats

Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges in our time and it is critical that communities, businesses, and governments take proactive steps to protect themselves from its effects. Artificial intelligence (AI) is such a powerful tool for this purpose by enabling the development of innovative strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Recent breakthroughs in AI system such as ChatGPT and Sora have raised hopes that it can bring us closer to resolving the climate threat, and it is thus important to understand in which ways AI may accelerate or impede climate progress. For example, AI can be applied to address climate change by providing new ways of research and engineering for both mitigation and adaptation, while the AI- driven productivity enhancement may aggregate the Earth’s burden.

We seek contributions (original research, reviews, perspective articles, case studies, comments) to a special Collection that relate to the aims presented above, and for instance deal with the following questions:

• How do AI gathering information to help pinpoint sources of greenhouse gas emissions?
• How do AI forecasting the quantities by analyzing patterns in historical data? Such as the quantities of wind power production, transportation demand, and extreme events.
• How do AI improving the efficiency of real-world systems by improving how these systems are optimized? For example, mapping large Antarctic icebergs and deforestation in satellite images, managing industrial heating/cooling systems, and consolidating freight shipments.
• How do AI facilitating the communities preparing for climate risks? AI technology help to predict climate disasters so that communities can better plan how to adapt it and mitigate its impact.
• What about the negative effects of AI applications on the climate? For example, AI-facilitated oil and gas extraction deteriorates the environment, whereas AI-driven innovations in marketing or manufacturing could increase consumption of goods and services, and thus raise associated emissions. These potential impacts could be large.

This collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 11 and SDG 13.