Session: AI can revolutionize the response to climate change
The climate challenge for next decade is immense. To meet Paris Agreement goals and avoid increasingly harmful effects on the climate, global carbon emissions must be reduced by 50% in the next decade. Corporations have a major role to play in meeting this challenge, but few have started to address the impact their emissions have on the climate. As the world has learned, it is exceedingly difficult to reduce carbon emissions—and particularly more so if companies have neither any idea how much carbon they actually emit nor any way to accurately measure emissions.
The problem is that greenhouse gases are colorless, scentless, and invisible, which makes them very difficult to measure. Lacking accurate measurement, companies set emission-reduction targets and action plans based on highly incomplete and inaccurate estimations, with margins of error of between 30-50%. To put the challenge simply: If you don’t know the distance between Point A and Point B, how can you estimate the time it will take to get there?
While the climate situation is dire there are, fortunately, technologies and tools that can accelerate the journey toward lower emissions. One of the most powerful tools is artificial intelligence. AI can help companies get to the next level of measurement and, once there, support them throughout the overall journey to emissions reduction. Artificial intelligence is becoming essential technology in the fight against climate change because of its ability to do things very quickly and very accurately.
Bio
Charlotte Degot is a founder and global leader of CO2 AI by BCG, an AI-powered solution that empowers corporations to advance on their sustainability journey. Charlotte built CO2 AI from a single vision to leverage AI technology to revolutionize the response to the most critical problem of our generation – climate change. Charlotte is also a Managing Director & Partner of BCG GAMMA, Boston Consulting Group’s entity dedicated to data science and advanced analytics. She is a leader in the firm’s work in digital operations in the consumer-packaged goods industry, as well as the global climate and sustainability lead.