NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

By Todd Brady

A recent United Nations Environment report suggested that nations must triple mitigation efforts in order to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change. While it is still possible to course-correct on climate change, we are quickly running out of time — the U.N. suggests that we have until 2030 to close the emissions gap.

The private sector must increase its efforts and further collaborate on industry-wide solutions to help bridge the gap. At Intel, we believe that global climate change is a serious environmental, economic and social challenge that warrants an equally serious response by both governments and the private sector. Our Climate Change Policy outlines the steps we take to reduce our own footprint and how we work with others to influence the development of sound public policies. In addition, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G communications and the Internet of Things (IoT) have incredible potential to address long-standing environmental challenges — from energy efficiency to resource management to predictive analytics, to name a few. As we and other technology companies work to reduce our own climate footprint, our technologies also can help dramatically reduce society’s footprint.

Photo courtesy of Andrew Magill.