UAE: AI could predict and prevent violence, climate change

Omran Sharaf, Assistant Foreign Minister of Advanced Science and Technology, highlighted the UAE’s commitment to working with partners to use AI for humanitarian action, during the UN’s Summit of the Future in New York.

"The use of Al for humanitarian action provides an anticipatory approach to predict and prepare for outbursts of violence, climate change, and displacement. The UAE will continue to work with all partners and stakeholders to ensure that our global community benefits from these technologies,” Sharaf said.

The Summit comes after nine months of negotiations with world leaders, reaching a “Pact for the Future,” which aims to “bring multilateralism back from the brink," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

The motion to adopt the pact was passed on Monday at the start of the summit, with opposition led by Russia as well as Iran, Sudan and Syria.

The Pact consists of 56 Actions designed to speed up Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on issues around peace and security, global governance, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations.

Emirati Development Minister Ohoud Al-Roumi said the UAE “applauded the efforts made by all” to get the agreement signed.

The Pact covers a wide range of actionable steps to achieve its goals, some of which include the restructuring of international financial architecture to better represent developing countries and “On climate change, confirmation of the need to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems to achieve net zero emissions by 2050,” the UN website said.

So far, only 17 per cent of SDG targets are on track, according the 2024 SDG Report.