An unlikely hero: AI’s climate victory

For this assignment we were asked to imagine that it’s 2040 and we have helped solve climate change.  We’ve been invited back to the Terra.do community to share our experience and the role we played in making that happen.

Picture yourself standing below a canopy of trees in a dense forest. You hear leaves rustling in the breeze and birds chirping in the distance. You take a deep breath in, and your lungs expand with clean, revitalizing air. You feel a tug on your sleeve and glance down. Your toddler is smiling up at you and suddenly you’re aware of how precious and fleeting this moment, and this planet, are.  

It was the summer of 2023, and I was at a crossroads. After losing my father and having two babies during the pandemic, I finally felt like myself again.  I had achieved success in my career in artificial intelligence and felt a pang to align my work with a larger purpose.

I enrolled in Terra.do’s Climate Change: Learning for Action program. The program was an eye-opener. It ignited a passion in me and provided me with the knowledge I had been missing, connections, and the tools to focus my skills on creating a solution to curb increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

In partnership with a few of my fellow Terra.do alumni, we explored the intersection between artificial intelligence and carbon credits programs.

The solution we created was two-fold:

Detect and Predict: We developed and trained the Track, Report, Analyze, and Predict (TRAP) artificial intelligence system that could scan vast datasets across the United States and track and record the carbon footprint of individual companies with an accuracy rate of 95%. The TRAP system could also predict emissions based on variables like industrial growth, commercial expansion, and more. This data became the roadmap for the next phase of our plan.

Carbon Credits Program: Now that we had precise data, it was time to put what we had learned into action. We made our data transparent and available to governments, stakeholders, and the public. This level of scrutiny and transparency meant that companies could no longer hide behind incomplete or biased data. They were held accountable, and more importantly, they were incentivized to offset their emissions through our carbon credits program. We offered rewards for minimizing their carbon footprint, while also making it profitable for them.

How did we accomplish this? The TRAP system provided us with a dynamic scale to adjust the value of carbon credits. If an area was predicted to have higher emissions in the next six months, the credits’ value in that location increased, and we offered greater incentives to companies located within that area to adopt greener alternatives.

Today, we've successfully rolled out this solution to 95 countries across the globe and counting. I can’t help but reflect on the work we’ve accomplished over the last eighteen years. If you had told me in 2022 that by 2040, we would have solved climate change, I would have responded with hopeful skepticism.

If not for the profound impact that Terra.do had on my journey, I would have probably remained a skeptic. The program equipped me with knowledge, yes, but more importantly, with a vision. A vision where technology can be used for more than convenience or profit, but to safeguard the planet that sustains us. I am forever grateful for that experience. And for my two children, now adults themselves, who inspire my best ideas and remind me for whom I continue to do the work that I do.