First of all, think about where people are mostly living across the world. They're living in cities.
Now, sometimes we get misconceptions about relative carbon footprints. For example, you might think that people in cities use more power than people who live in the country.
On the whole, that's incorrect – city dwellers use far less energy on average. And it makes sense in a number of ways. You might have 100 units with one shared source of heat. And there's a lot of room for rooftop gardens and solar.
A resource from the United Nations University reveals more about why this is true – and why, in general, the suburbs are actually the worst for energy consumption. Specifically, the authors write, of an Austrian study:
“Even when controlling for other socio-economic factors including income, we found that people in semi-urban areas … emit around 8% more CO₂ than those in cities, and people in rural areas around 4% more.”
So even though country living benefits from being closer to nature, city living can be a big energy saver for the planet.
This reminds me of one of the talks that we saw at the recent Planetary Stewardship event – Okalo Ikhena talking about using AI to build models for smarter cities. Ikhena is Director of Product and Head of Delve at Google.
Pointing out that some 4.5 billion of us live in cities, he shows how a total of 13,000 buildings get built every day.
“As cities, as communities, as corporations, as individuals, we have to think about sustainability,” he says, noting that most of the world doesn't have the data, and that democratizing access means connecting the dots between the tools and the people who live in a community
One way AI can help, he explains, is in building an inventory, automating data collection for things like flood risk or regulatory status – making unstructured data into structured data that will help people to intelligently explore and design.
“This is stuff that would take humans months, if not years, to do,” he says.
Referencing a ‘built environment library’ which he calls the “ideal fingerprint” for certain kinds of research, Ikhena talks about how to impact future outcomes. He talks about recognizing comorbidities in communities, and about the principle of inclusive design. He talks about self-service and how communities can participate.
All of it is really interesting in the pursuit of a greener future with AI - experts have estimated that new models could save us many gigatons of carbon emissions. Here’s a study from BCG that indicates something on the order of 5% to 10% of all total emissions.
Take a look at all of the interesting projects going on right now in this field, and this paper from the World Economic Forum about the promise of making AI part of the solution, not a driver of carbon emissions itself.
From traffic to housing to work and shopping, reinventing our cities is going to yield big benefits in the age of AI.
This hardhatOPINION was was written for Forbes by John Werner an MIT Senior Fellow, 5x-founder & VC investing in AI
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