The author is the CEO of IBM Israel
If the corona could be ignored for a moment, we would remember 2020 as the year when there were more weather and climate disasters in the world than ever before. It is estimated that 70% of them were as a result of climate change stemming from human activity. Between 2011 and 2020, weather events around the world caused cumulative estimated damage of about $ 2.5 trillion – 50% more than the costs of the previous decade. Beyond the tragic loss of human life, these were events that damaged assets and resources, destroyed inventories, cut supply chains, caused failures in services and infrastructure and prevented employees from getting to work.
The future also looks bleak: The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report for 2021 found that the three “most likely” business risks in the next decade are all climate-related: extreme weather, climate change containment and environmental damage caused by humans. Global environmental regulation processes and increased capital market pressure on polluting companies or those that ignore environmental issues, and are now marked as lepers.
But there are signs that the “token has dropped”: A recent IBM survey of 3,000 executives in dozens of countries and industry sectors around the world found that about half (51%) prioritize sustainability, and about 70% said they were personally involved in formulating their organization’s strategy. . But 51% also admitted that this is also one of the most difficult administrative challenges for them – at a rate similar to regulatory challenges and even more so than cyber threats or supply challenges. 61% are reluctant to return on unclear environmental investments and 45% say that lack of reliable information and applicable insights limit their ability to take action on the issue.
Change can be made
Belief in the process seems to exist: 80% of survey respondents believe that the sustainability strategy they formulate will yield an improvement in business results over the next five years and 45% believe it will even accelerate growth in the organization. But implementation is slow: 95% of respondents said they were at least at the beginning of formulating an action plan on the subject and only 23% said they had started implementing their sustainability strategy in the organization.
Against the backdrop of the war in Europe, rising inflation, the global crisis in the technology stock market, the global shortage of talented human capital and the closures in China that are creating difficulties in supply chains – it was easy to give up dealing with another crisis. And yet, according to the survey, at least half of managers continue to believe that change can be brought about and also pose the challenges of climate change and place the issue high on their priorities. And it’s not just executives who are worried: 72% of them admitted that the pressure on the issue comes from their boards and 57% said they experience pressure from their investors as well as from business partners, regulators and governments.
Consumers are also playing a role in changing consciousness: According to another recent IBM survey, 80% of consumers indicated that sustainability is important to them, and 60% were willing to change buying habits to preserve the environment. Industry trends that used to be called “green”, such as reducing emissions or reducing plastics and fossil fuels, are today seen simply as good and justified business decisions, and the conclusion seems clear: addressing climate risks has become the “new normal” in the business world and ignoring them – business risk. In fact, it seems to have been known for a long time: weather disasters and the devastating consequences of climate change are not good for business. Is it possible to solve the impasse?
It is known that the task is enormous in scope: it requires analysis of tens of thousands of climatic parameters from the present and the past, global and regional geographical data, conclusions from thousands of studies and hundreds of complex models – lots of distributed data that create great complexity that humans can not extract.
Harness the powerful tools
Humanity must now harness the most powerful tools at its disposal to prevent the catastrophe and I believe the key to the breakthrough lies in the synergy between technology and scientific research. At the forefront of technology are artificial intelligence for analyzing complex models, accelerated computing that will shorten the way for big data processing, cloud computing that will enable collaboration without limits and limitations, and quantum computing – which breaks the existing computing limitations in processing and prediction. Combining these with the minds of academia will enable Accelerated Discovery of applicable scientific-technological breakthroughs: alternative energy solutions, innovative materials (consumables or CO2 registers for example), drugs and custom vaccines for the following epidemics, advanced diagnostic tools, simulations, tools Forecasting, risk management and planning. Each of these tools alone is effective and vital to scientific research, but the synergy between them will empower scientists, researchers and developers, accelerate creativity and increase the scope of scientific discovery so that we can solve complex problems.
The time has come for the world to deal with the climate crisis with the same urgency, determination and cooperation demonstrated in the struggle in Corona. As researchers in academia, technology companies and drug companies have pooled resources to develop vaccines and drugs for an epidemic that has threatened to paralyze the world. Only a combination of forces between scientists, technology companies and governments, and the harnessing of advanced artificial intelligence and computing tools, can accelerate the processes of scientific research and the formation of insights, and provide a stable research infrastructure that can give hope to those struggling with climate change – and future generations.