The Climate Change AI (CCAI) organization, which is composed of volunteers from academia and industry who believe that tackling climate change requires concerted societal action in machine learning, has announced a new Call for Proposals: Climate Change AI Innovation Grants.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can help support climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as climate science, across many different areas, for example energy, agriculture, forestry, climate modeling, and disaster response (for a broader overview of the space, please refer to Climate Change AI’s interactive topic summaries and materials from previous events). However, impactful research and deployment have often been held back by a lack of data and other essential infrastructure, as well as insufficient knowledge transfer between relevant fields and sectors.
The relationship between AI and climate change is also nuanced, and can manifest in various ways that either contribute to or counteract climate action. Thus, the use of AI for climate action must be performed responsibly, and ideally with quantifiable impacts.
With the support of the Quadrature Climate Foundation and Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, we are excited to announce funding of USD 1.8M for projects at the intersection of AI and climate change. We are also grateful to Future Earth International for serving as the fiscal sponsor for this program.
The program will allocate grants of up to $150,000 for conducting research projects of 1 year in duration. Relevant research includes but is not limited to the following topics:
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- ML to aid mitigation approaches in relevant sectors such as agriculture, buildings and cities, heavy industry and manufacturing, power and energy systems, transportation, or forestry and other land use
- ML applied to societal adaptation to climate change, including disaster prediction, management, and relief in relevant sectors
- ML for climate and Earth science, ecosystems, and natural systems as relevant to mitigation and adaptation
- ML for R&D of low-carbon technologies such as electrofuels and carbon capture & sequestration
- ML approaches in behavioral and social science related to climate change, including those anchored in climate finance and economics, climate justice, and climate policy
- Projects addressing AI governance in the context of climate change, or that aim to assess the greenhouse gas emissions impacts of AI or AI-driven applications, may also be eligible for funding.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) just released a new whitepaper on Computing Research for the Climate Crisis, coauthored by Nadya Bliss (Arizona State University), Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado Boulder), and Claire Monteleoni (University of Colorado Boulder and a CCAI Advisor), to highlight the role of computing research in addressing climate change-induced challenges. See the full whitepaper here.
The proposal submission deadline is October 15th. For information about the Call for Proposals: Climate Change AI Innovation Grants, please see their website.
