COP28 update for December 5th, 2023

COP28’s Climate Innovation Forum brought together the world’s technology leaders in a series of talks exploring cutting-edge solutions to tackle the global climate crisis, including artificial intelligence (AI), satellite technology, big data, clean energy, industrial decarbonization, low-carbon hydrogen, and more. Attending the Climate Innovation Forum were key leaders in the technology and sustainability fields, including: His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, and Director General of The Prime Minister’s Office.Bill Gates, Founder of Breakthrough Energy and Co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM, Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer of Google.Elizabeth Gaines, Non-Executive Director and Global Green Ambassador at Fortescue Metals. Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President at Microsoft along with several innovative startups from Breakthrough Energy Ventures. “Developing and scaling the solutions necessary to support the global energy transition, at the speed required to meet our goals, will require unprecedented cross-sector collaboration,” Adnan Amin, the CEO of COP28 said, “it is an honor to bring together the best and the brightest in the technology world to rally around the shared objective of driving climate progress. We must ensure that the decisions made here at COP28 are translated into practical real-world action and technology will play a pivotal role in making sure that happens.” Convening in Dubai, a city which itself is one of the world’s leading technology hubs, the Climate Innovation Forum opened with an address by His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, and Director General of The Prime Minister’s Office. His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, said: “We are confronted with two distinct paths—one of hope and opportunity and the other in potential catastrophe. The potential for a technological revolution underpinned by environmental responsibility could lead us to a carbon-neutral future, reshaping our utilization of Earth’s resources to achieve progress and preservation simultaneously.” That session was followed by a fireside between His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, and Director General of The Prime Minister’s Office and Aravind Krisha, CEO of IBM where they spoke about a broad range of topics including the applications of AI and Quantum Computing and how they can help solve climate change issues, especially those facing the Global South. Kate Brandt, Google’s Chief Sustainability Officer then spoke about moonshot thinking for climate action and highlighted an example where AI is currently being piloted with the Chilean government for grid management. Bill Gates, Founder of Breakthrough Energy and Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, closed the event with a fireside discussion alongside Eric Toone, Chief Technology Officer, Breakthrough Energy & Managing Partner, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Amy Harder, Executive Editor of Cipher. During the session, they discussed the opportunities for scaling climate solution with Bill Gates saying: “Bringing down the green premium is key for the widespread adoption of climate technologies”. During the event, both Google and Breakthrough Energy Catalyst also revealed new projects that strive to accelerate the development of clean technologies in support of the green energy transition. Project InnerSpace and Google announced GeoMap™, a first of its kind geothermal exploration tool, which is focused on expanding the use and adoption of geothermal energy worldwide. Breakthrough Energy Catalyst spotlighted its newly announced projects that will accelerate the deployment of innovative clean energy technologies.These include Ørsted’s FlagshipONE, the largest e-Methanol project in Europe, Energy Dome’s Ottana CO2 Battery Project, a first-of-a-kind long duration energy storage project, and Infinium’s Project Roadrunner, a commercial-scale Power-to-Liquids eFuels facility. The conference highlighted the importance of Technology & Innovation as critical enablers and accelerators across sectors and emphasized the need for wide scale deployment and adoption to deliver significant impact in reducing or removing Greenhouse gas GHG emissions and bring scaling timelines closer. Challenges around the “green premium”, the cost of implementing climate solutions were raised as well the challenges around the sustainability of these technologies themselves, especially the increasing carbon footprints that data centers need to enable AI.