Harnessing Tech & Data For Accelerated Climate Action

Africa boasts the world’s lowest per capita greenhouse gas emissions, yet it stands as one of the continents most profoundly affected by the impacts of climate change. The continent’s most impoverished communities find themselves utterly vulnerable in the face of extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, which often lead to catastrophic famines and livelihood insecurities.

Today, technology is playing an increasingly important role in tackling the global challenge of climate change. However, African governments need to do more to utilize new technology and data to address some of the challenges related to climate change.

At the ongoing Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya experts discussed strategies on how to harness technology and data for accelerated climate action. The side event was organized by PS Julius Korir, State Department of Cabinet Affairs, Dr. Clair Melamed, CEO of Global Partnerships for Sustainable Development, Geoffrey Lovene, Director of Worldwide AI Initiatives at NVIDIA, and PS Julius Korir, State Department of Cabinet Affairs, among other experts.

The experts advised African governments to use data to address challenges related to climate change on the continent. “Data can bridge the gap between perception and reality. Many African countries still rely on guesswork to develop solutions to climate changes. Governments can use data to formulate policies to mitigate climate challenges,” Dr. Melamed said.

The experts highlighted that there are many ways in which technology and data can help African countries adapt to the impacts of climate change. For example, governments can use data to predict the next course of action that will mitigate the impact of climate change, as well as to map out priority areas such as tree planting.

To effectively harness technology and data for accelerated climate action, the experts further recommended the following:

Partnerships: The experts emphasized the importance of partnerships in coming up with solutions to mitigate climate change. For instance, governments can collaborate with tech companies to come up with strategies to solve challenges.  With Large Language Models (LLMs) going commercial, governments can partner with AI companies to utilize geospatial data to build specific applications that address problems, such as flood management.

The experts advised tech companies to demonstrate use cases of new technologies to governments to expedite the adoption of innovative solutions to climate challenges.

Democratization of Data: The democratization of data refers to the process of making data and information more accessible and available to a broader and more diverse group of people within an organization or society.

The forum explained that data should not be restricted to a select few or limited to experts but should be made available to individuals across different departments, skill levels, and backgrounds. Data is made easily accessible to a wide range of users, including non-technical staff, through user-friendly tools and interfaces. The government and those in possession of data should make it accessible to science practitioners, citizen scientists, and others.

Data Governance: Data governance is a collection of processes, roles, policies, standards, and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals. It establishes the processes and responsibilities that ensure the quality and security of the data used across a business or organization. Data governance defines who can take what action, upon what data, in what situations, using what methods. It is important for African countries as it will ensure they use data in their possession to good use.