April 2024
Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change: New Opportunities to Grasp, Old Trade-offs to Manage
Artificial intelligence is instrumental to address the challenges of climate change but the high energy consumption linked to machine learning raises environmental concerns. How can we take advantage of the benefits without excessive energy consumption? To answer this question, the Lisbon Council convened a Working Lunch on Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change: New Opportunities to Grasp, Old Trade-offs to Manage to explore the role of artificial intelligence in the fight against climate change. The debate also served as the perfect backdrop to launch the Sustainable Computing for a Sustainable Planet, a Lisbon Council Research special report exploring the energy impact of artificial intelligence and how technological innovation can help Europe remain at the forefront of the digital transition without compromising climate goals.
The lunch counted exceptional participants, such as Paula Pinho, director, just transition, consumers, energy security, efficiency and innovation unit, directorate-general for energy at the European Commission; Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, head of the earth science department at Barcelona supercomputing center and lead author of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fifth and sixth assessment report and Joshua Parker, senior director for corporate sustainability at NVIDIA corporation, the leading producer of graphics processing units (GPUs) driving the artificial intelligence revolution.