UN warns climate crisis worsening, but AI offers new hope for solutions

The world remains far off track in tackling the climate crisis, but the UN has voiced hope that artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies will help address the towering challenges.

In a new report on Wednesday, the United Nations warned the goals laid out in the 2015 Paris climate accord, aiming to keep global temperature rises below 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, appeared to be slipping away, with disastrous consequences.

The multi-agency "United in Science" report, coordinated by the UN's World Meteorological Organization, highlighted that greenhouse gas concentrations have hit record levels, fuelling temperature increases into the future.

"The science is clear: We are far off track from achieving global climate goals," WMO chief Celeste Saulo told reporters in Geneva.

If current policies remain unchanged, the report warned there is now a two-thirds likelihood that global warming will hit 3C this century.

Saulo said 2023 was already the warmest year on record "by a huge margin" and the first eight months of this year had followed the same trend.

"We are sounding the red alert for the planet," she said.

At the same time, Saulo stressed that "there is hope".

"We have to have hope for the sake of future generations."

Released ahead of the UN's Summit of the Future in New York this weekend, the report pointed to advances in natural and social sciences and technological innovations.

"They could be game changers for climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and sustainable development," Saulo insisted.

AI and machine learning in particular could be "transformative technologies", the report said, suggesting that they could "revolutionise weather forecasting and could equip society with better tools to respond and adapt to climate change".

The technologies, which are rapidly improving the ability to process vast amounts of data, could make skilful weather modelling faster, cheaper and more accessible, enabling a "paradigm shift in predicting extreme and hazardous weather events", it said.

The report also highlighted great advances in space-based Earth observations, which have "opened new frontiers" in the understanding of weather, climate, water and environmental patterns.

Satellite technologies are for instance enabling extreme weather forecasting in difficult to reach regions, and places lacking ground-based observations.

WMO acknowledged that new technologies can also be detrimental to climate action, due for instance to significant energy use.

Saulo called on countries to "put controls in place so that these developments are for the benefit of the global community ... and avoid the negative impacts".