Climate change is often linked to heat, but it’s more than just a gradual warming. It’s a warping force, distorting environments and putting pressure on vulnerable regions, especially in the Global South, where the strain is far greater, like a rubber band stretched to its breaking point.
Nine of the world’s 10 countries most vulnerable to flood risk are part of the Global South. In the tropics, more rainfall and higher temperatures will boost average humidity, creating a dangerous cocktail that will make heat waves even more deadly. These hostile conditions have already triggered a mass migration out of the Global South that’s expected to involve about 143 million people by 2050. While historically they’ve contributed less to global greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis since the Industrial Revolution, countries in the Global South will bear the brunt of the economic, social, and environmental effects of global warming.
The stakes are high: move, adapt, or die. How these disproportionately affected nations adapt to climate change could offer critical insights for the rest of the world. Their innovative approaches and adoption of climate-resilient technologies offer valuable lessons for the global community. Artificial intelligence is at the forefront of this technological vanguard. Though it’s not a magic wand, it may prove to be a powerful tool if used correctly. Since 2018, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, has been actively supporting organizations working on climate-resilient technologies. When they use AI, many of these organizations have observed significant improvements in efficiency. “Organizations report to us that they’re able to achieve their end goals in a third of the time and a half the cost [when using AI],” says Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, the director, AI & Social Impact at Google.org.
There’s a palpable enthusiasm for the technology among these countries. Countries in the Global South express more optimism than any other region in the world regarding AI’s impact on job efficiency, information access, and health management, according to a recent Google and Ipsos study.
“I’ve never seen African policy makers so engaged early on with a new technology like they are with AI,” says Strive Masiyiwa, founder and executive chairman of Econet, a South Africa–based telecommunications provider.
He cites the continent’s youthful demographic as one of the main reasons for this enthusiasm. “Africa is the youngest region in the world. The mean age is under 20. Obviously, you’re going to get more buzz and more excitement,” says Masiyiwa.
Adaptation
These climate pressures have forced nations to develop innovative adaptation strategies, and with good reason: The rate of flood-related disasters has more than doubled since 2000, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as the sea level in the Red Sea, located between Africa and Asia, is rising faster than the global average and threatening the coastal communities around its perimeter. Once-in-a-century floods threaten some 1.81 billion people globally, and more than two-thirds of those people live in South and East Asia.
Forecasting when and how these floods will hit may help save thousands of lives. Flood Hub is a Google tool that provides forecasts up to seven days in advance for 460 million people across multiple continents. It projects the amount of water flowing in a river, what areas will be affected, and how high the water level will be. In 2021 alone, the system sent out 115 million flood-alert notifications to 23 million people. Building on this momentum, Google Research recently partnered with the United Nations to develop an AI system that can assess post-disaster damage from satellite imagery six times faster than traditional methods, helping humanitarian teams respond more quickly to communities in crisis.
In addition to using AI for flood forecasting, organizations are applying it to map a more holistic view of Earth’s waterways. With support from Google.org, DHI A/S, a water engineering consultancy firm, uses AI to understand the nature of wetlands, which are among the world’s most important ecosystems.
“Wetlands help improve climate resilience by storing excess water during floods and supporting low flow during drought periods,” explained Na’Tosha Bard, chief technology officer at DHI A/S. “Yet most countries do not have a good account of their wetlands. This is a critical information gap, as you cannot manage what you do not measure.”
DHI is launching a program called Global Wetland Watch to track wetland ecosystems. The system will use AI algorithms to extract information on the global extent and distribution of wetland ecosystems from satellite imagery, helping to protect and restore these vital ecosystems.
Beyond these larger initiatives, AI is empowering small farmers, who represent the backbone of agriculture in the Global South and are at the frontlines of climate change.
Another Google.org grantee leveraging AI is Wadhwani AI, an institute focused on communities in developing countries to provide growers with the tools they need to manage their crops. “Farmers can upload images of diseased plants, and our AI models instantly identify pest infestations or diseases,” says J.P. Tripathi, director of Agriculture Programs at Wadhwani AI. “These solutions provide small farmers with real-time, actionable insights for managing pests, diseases, and environmental challenges that can affect their crops.”
Beyond crop management, there’s also a need to develop crops that can withstand those erratic variables. Rice, for example, is the most consumed carbohydrate in the world and is mostly grown in developing regions like Southeast Asia, China, and Africa. Google.org supports the work of the International Rice Research Institute, where AI is used to generate climate-hardy rice varieties at a speed and a level of efficiency that has never been seen before.
“AI can be used in the genomic selection approaches to improve the precision of breeding and achieve better genetic gain,” says Dr. Venuprasad Ramaiah, the head of Fit-for-Future Genetic Resources and the International Rice Genebank at the International Rice Research Institute. “The development and deployment of high-yielding, climate-resilient rice varieties are expected to generate significant economic benefits for the rice farming community in stress-prone environments.”
Climate change–induced migration in the Global South is placing growing pressure on governments, as they struggle to manage the influx of displaced populations and address resource shortages. The Horn of Africa, together with Eastern Africa, saw 1.2 million new disaster-related displacements, according to a 2020 World Meteorological Organization report.
Predicting human migratory patterns is an essential part of mitigating the adverse effects of displacement, and AI is enabling those predictions. One project, led by the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins University, will kick off in Mali and Iraq in late 2024. Researchers will be working on the ground to conduct interviews with refugees and collect as much data as they can on their conditions, reasons for moving, destinations, and distance traveled.
“In terms of migration and movements, we will have multiple sources of data, but they won’t be comprehensive,” says Paul B. Spiegel, the principal investigator on the project. “And so we want to use AI to be able to examine the data that we have and try to make the various connections. We’ll have to train it.”
There’s a particular urgency for these tools in the Global South, given the compounded challenges of climate change, conflict, and economic instability. “The Global North will be able to adapt better than the Global South because of the systems that are in place and the money that is available to them,” Spiegel says, highlighting the contrasts in infrastructure and welfare. “If we have an idea of where people may be moving to, governments will be able to think ahead and plan.”
As AI continues to revolutionize climate resilience efforts in the Global South, it’s clear that technology alone cannot solve the climate crisis. While these innovations offer the ability to predict and potentially mitigate issues, they also highlight a pressing need for global action and investment.
“At the end of the day, it won’t get us past what needs to happen, which is actual investment,” Masiyiwa says. “I can get people to get a deeper understanding of the energy transition requirement, what needs to happen, where forests are being destroyed … but that still doesn’t run away from the fact that the global community, which is primarily responsible for this crisis, has got to put something on the table.”
The story of AI and climate resilience in the Global South is one of innovation born of necessity. But while AI-driven solutions provide valuable insights and tools, they are just the first step.
“We can analyze ourselves to death. It’s not the analysis. We know what the issue is,” Masiyiwa adds. “Let’s put the money in, let’s invest the resources.” As the world faces one of the greatest migratory challenges in history, technology—no matter how cutting-edge—is just a tool. Fixing the crisis will demand not just innovation, but also dedication and investment.
