Page 15 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Under the motto ‘Changing Minds, Not the Climate’, UNESCO is mobilizing its full set of competencies
in an integrated approach through education, sciences, culture, communication and information
in support of Member States efforts to address the climate crises. The role of new technologies is
paramount in this context. The 2018 IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C
and the 2019 IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land
management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems, made it crystal clear
that science, technology and innovation are central to reaching the targets under the Paris Agreement.
The urgency of the climate and biodiversity crises should not blind us from the fact that past
advancements in science and technology, and their applications, have contributed to aggravating
a number of environmental and climate challenges that the world is now facing. This calls for a
sober assessment of benefits and risks in the advancement and implementation of increasingly
powerful technological and artificial intelligence systems devised to help address them. UNESCO,
such as through its World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology, is,
therefore, putting a premium on ethical frameworks, as manifested in the UNESCO Declaration of
Ethical Principles in Relation to Climate Change adopted by its UNESCO General Conference in 2017.

As implied under the pledge to ‘leave no one behind’ in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, UNESCO is also a stern advocate of seeking to ensure that frontier technologies benefit
those most in need and that they promote rather than compromise gender equality. A good example
of this is the ITU-UNESCO Broadband Commission that advocates for the development of broadband
infrastructure in developing countries and marginalized communities.
Ranging from work on climate modelling, ocean science and monitoring, hydrology and water
management, science policy, basic sciences, disaster risk reduction and biodiversity conservation,
several references are given in the present publication on how UNESCO, and its unique number of
centres and institutes, such as the UNESCO Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
(ICTP), promote the application of such technologies to address environmental and climate issues.

While supporting sound advanced technologies and their applications, UNESCO is also well aware
of the fact that they are not a panacea, and that sustainability and sustainable development are a
function of technology working in harmony with nature-based solutions and with traditional and
indigenous knowledge. UNESCO has several tools and programmes in place for this purpose, including
the networks of almost 2000 UNESCO designated sites around the world that strive to enhance the
protection and sustainable use of our cultural and natural resources with and for local people and
the international community at large. By designating World Heritage Sites, Biosphere Reserves and
Global Geoparks, UNESCO provide excellent frameworks as observatories for implementing, assessing
and sharing technology and sustainability solutions to address climate change and environmental
concerns at local, regional and global scales. As such, they are also the ideal venues for UN interagency
collaboration and international cooperation in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals in
harmony with nature.

Audrey Azoulay
Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

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