Green government operations aim to minimise an entity’s environmental impact such as, energy use, water use, waste and pollution generation and greenhouse gas emissions. Likewise, ‘climate tech’ includes technologies that are used to address climate change. Read about some of the UAE’s green government and climate tech initiatives.
Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) developed the ‘Artificial Intelligence Operating System’ (AIOS) to reduce the high cost of artificial intelligence (AI) programmes by decreasing the amount of energy that is spent in their development. The AIOS aims to support data centres at MBZUAI and in the UAE with the ability to enter ‘eco-mode’ for AI training and reduce energy waste.
Current AI computing is extremely environmentally unfriendly. For example, training GPT3 once can cost as much energy as the home electricity usage of a small city (150,000 homes) and millions of dollars.
The AIOS technology will reduce the energy and time required for AI computing by making models smaller, faster, and less reliant on high-end hardware, while also making them more performant and easier to adapt to changing environments and users.
The AIOS can form the foundation of next-generation AI software production via automatic code generation, federated and collaborative machine learning, and standardised and certifiable software engineering, which will be used across industries such as energy, agriculture, water and food, and more.
The UAE’s Green Barjeel Research project aims to leverage innovative methods to grow microalgae biomass with a high lipid content in tower-shaped structures. The project involves collecting algae from the UAE’s desert ponds and cultivating them. The process offers lot of benefits, including sequestering CO2 and removing dust particles from the ambient air to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. The structures can serve as passive cooling systems for use in public spaces.
The project also seeks to examine and classify the diverse indigenous algal strains and test the potential of using them to produce biofuel and biofertilizers. The scope includes an experimental study on the safe and sustainable removal of Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and Sulfur oxides (SOx) from the atmosphere.
The first model of the Green Barjeel Research station is located in the garden of Ministry of Climate Change and Environment office in Dubai. The station is equipped with sensors that collect a series of environmentally sensitive data, such as ambient temperature, water temperature, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels for monitoring and displaying it on an electronic smart board.
The UAE’s ‘Climate-Responsible Companies Pledge’ aims to increase the engagement of the private sector in the country’s decarbonisation drive, in line with the UAE Net Zero 2050 Strategic Initiative.
The pledge forms the basis of future collaborations between the private sector, non-governmental organisations (NGO) and international organisations, which aim to support private sector entities in implementing their net zero plans.
The pledge is part of the initiatives of Ministry of Climate Change and Environment aimed at scaling up the UAE’s climate action, in response to the call of the Glasgow Climate Pact - (PDF, 111 KB) for countries to adopt higher GHG emission reduction targets.
Established by the UAE, the Independent Climate Change Accelerators (UICCA) is a non-partisan, climate action entity that brings together members of the public and private sector to drive the UAE’s commitment towards net zero by 2050. In the lead-up to the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28), the UICCA will establish an independent body that enables collaboration, cooperation and innovation. This includes advice and recommendations on positive climate actions to reduce the climate-related risk for the UAE before, during and after COP28.
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