BAKU, Azerbaijan – Beyond addressing energy demand growth, the Conference of the Parties (COP) for Climate Change has called on global economies to viably leverage on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool in advancing their respective strategies for decarbonization.

In a recently concluded Energy Week in Baku, COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber primarily urged both the energy and technology sectors “to work more closely together on accelerating the adoption of AI to sustainably meet the world’s growing energy demand and drive decarbonization.”

As energy transition agendas are taking stride on a precipice, AI is being regarded as the revolutionary force that can drive efficiencies on energy usage; and one that could also spur innovation and set actionable items at a pace and scale that human efforts alone could scarcely achieve.

Al Jaber noted that “while AI is driving a surge in energy demand, it is also driving efficiencies to curb emissions.”

He qualified that “the growth of AI is one of three mega-trends that will shape our future, alongside the accelerating energy transition and the rise of emerging markets and the global south.”

Al Jaber thus emphasized that with accelerated convergence of AI and energy, there would be “more solutions we can unlock to drive decarbonized growth everywhere.”

Seen as a core strength of AI is its ability to analyze vast and complex datasets; and with algorithms at hand, it can predict portended results with high degree of accuracy and precision.

When that is translated into the operational realm of the energy sector, AI-aided operation in energy systems could yield optimized energy consumption as well as production – and more efficient operations through the entire supply chain would entail less carbon emissions spewed into the atmosphere.

Then in the wider integration of renewables at power systems, AI will similarly allow grid operators to balance loads more effectively; while the RE players can forecast availability of their capacities at optimized levels.

Latching on to the array of consensus achieved in the COP28 Climate Change negotiations, Al Jaber asserted that they will be working closely with the COP29 Presidency in Azerbaijan so the outcomes from the Dubai Summit could progressively move into fruition.

A ‘troika approach’ is currently being worked on by the host-countries of COP28, COP29 and the forthcoming hosting of Brazil for COP30 in the Amazonian City of Belem – that way, they can collaboratively sort out action agendas that will solidify the paths to concretization for the landmark agreements in the successive climate change summits.

Al Jaber highlighted that “COP28 made history with the UAE Consensus - delivering the most comprehensive set of climate breakthroughs since the Paris Agreement…and, against a very difficult geopolitical backdrop, we proved that multilateralism is alive and well.”