Overtime, technology has drastically changed the way people live. Technology not only has the power to provide people with many opportunities, but it also enables us to develop solutions to problems we may not even know we had. Throughout the years, technology has had many major advancements such as smartwatches, voice assistant devices, facial recognition and much more. With advancements like these, technology has given us the ability to interact with others, learn and think in a new way.
A great way to use technology is for social good. Technology is far more powerful when it empowers everyone. With the wide range of problems that we are constantly dealing with globally, it's hard to figure out where to get started. The UN has adopted 17 sustainable goals (SDGs) in 2015 that all aim to provide peace and prosperity for the people and the planet now and in the future. These goals are an urgent call to action globally.
The SDG I will be talking about is SDG 13: Climate action as it is a prevalent issue that people we need to work towards. The UN explains "Affordable, scalable solutions are now available to enable countries to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies. The pace of change is quickening as more people are turning to renewable energy and a range of other measures that will reduce emissions and increase adaptation efforts."
There are several impacts of climate change, and some include changing weather patterns and rising sea levels. In addition, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising to new records with 2019 being the warmest year on record. Even though due to the COVID-19 pandemic, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to drop approximately by 6%, the change is only temporary, but we must try to make these temporary changes permanent.
How can we utilize technology to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal ?
Leveraging technology to reduce climate impacts can help us achieve SDG 13. Technology already does a great job of providing us with the understanding of what climate change is and also gives us a better understanding of what models to build and how to act. Technology sets the foundation and helps us build healthy societies. One example of how technology was used to help with climate action was during the Atlantic hurricane season. Technology was leveraged by various scientists to use data to create a correlation between warmer waters and stronger storms. This data was also inputted into parametric insurance platforms to deliver immediate relief to a location following a storm. Technology can also be used to make devices that we already use save more energy by making them more efficient. This in turn reduces energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. New technologies have the ability to use or create energy carriers that emit a lower amount of greenhouse gasses. With all of these advanced new technologies, we have the ability to directly work towards SDG 13.
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Lavisha Bugreja
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