Driving climate resilience with data and AI

As AI transforms how we reduce emissions, attention is turning to how it can support climate resilience and adaptation. AI applications are becoming mainstream in assessing opportunities to reduce carbon emissions in the energy sector through, for example, optimizing electrical grids. Climate adaptation, however, presents more complex challenges due to the unpredictable nature of hazard impacts and vastly divergent levels of preparedness across geographies. This session discusses the state-of-the-art in modelling adaptation at diverse spatial scales and how it can support both public and private sector interventions to enhance resilience. Meet our speakers and chair Parag Khanna is Founder & CEO of AlphaGeo, the leading AI-powered geospatial analytics platform. He is the internationally bestselling author of seven books including MOVE: Where People Are Going for a Better Future (2021), preceded by The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019), as well as a trilogy of books on the future of world order beginning with The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). He is also the author of Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012). Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Born in India and raised in the UAE, New York and Germany, he has traveled to more than 150 countries and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Elizabeth Robinson is Professor of Environmental Economics at the Department of Geography and Environment, and Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. She is also the theme co-lead for the Building Sustainable Societies theme at LSE’s Global School of Sustainability. Jonathan Pershing is the inaugural Dean of the Global School of Sustainability at LSE. He has extensive experience at the highest level of US climate policy and has played a key role in creating international climate agreements. He has held significant positions in the US Department of State — including as the US Special Envoy for Climate Change — and at the US Department of Energy. Most recently, he was the Director of the Environment Program at the Hewlett Foundation. More information The Global School of Sustainability at LSE (GSoS) is the interdisciplinary centre for sustainability research impact at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). GSoS works in partnerships to advance pioneering sustainability research, global policy engagement and world-leading educational opportunities. Grounded in LSE’s interdisciplinary excellence across the social sciences, GSoS’s global networks target the systemic challenges to sustainability embedded in the world’s economies, politics and societies.