BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 16. Great to start our COP29 journey by supporting the Green Digital Action initiative led by the ITU and the government of Azerbaijan, UNESCO Deputy Director-General for Social and Human Sciences Gabriela Ramos wrote on X, Trend reports.
"This is a commensurate effort to achieve our climate goals, acknowledging that we are falling behind. Technological advancements have not been climate-friendly. On the contrary, the carbon footprint of AI and GenAI, with their high #energy and water consumption, resource usage, and waste, is alarmingly high," she wrote.
Ramos pointed out that UNESCO is proud to have been addressing AI and the environment since the adoption of the Recommendation on the Ethics of AI in 2021, which includes 194 member states and features a comprehensive environmental chapter.
"This initiative focuses on reducing AI’s environmental impact while leveraging AI to tackle environmental challenges. We are taking this effort further with the Minister of Ecological Transition of France, ISO, IEEE and ITU to develop a measurement roadmap to be presented at the AI Action Summit in France next February," she added.
Meanwhile, the National Commission of Azerbaijan for UNESCO shared a message on X, noting that it is a great honor and pleasure to host Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO Gabriela Ramos at the Azerbaijan Pavilion at COP29.
The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened at the Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11. It is the largest event organized by Azerbaijan to date and the first time in the region that it is being held in Azerbaijan.
Within COP29, the highest-level event - the summit of world leaders on climate action - was held on November 12–13.
The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.
In addition to being a top priority that creates the conditions for action, creating climate finance will also help fulfill the 1.5°C pledge by bringing everyone together.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for “Conference of Parties” and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.
