Introduction

We are witnessing mankind’s greatest behavioral transition. Tackling the defining problem of our generation, climate change, requires us to shift eighty percent (80%) of the world’s energy production from fossil fuels to clean alternatives while simultaneously removing existing greenhouse gasses (“GHG”) like carbon dioxide and methane from our air and oceans. This requires large-scale transformations in the way we structure our societies and economies, as we recognize that we must reach “net-zero” emissions, and that we must do so quickly. 

Recent years have seen ever more commitments to energy efficiency and sustainability, underwritten by state-actors, business leaders and international organizations world-wide. The commitments made at these conferences have become a globally established norm, but commitments alone are not sufficient to achieve the climate ambitions of the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (“MENAP”). 

As countries in the region strive to adhere to the Paris Agreement and thereby contribute to the global effort to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint, actionable strategies and tangible success indicators are needed. To meet goals determined by the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (“GCC”) countries’ nationally determined contributions (“NDC”), help developing countries in the region achieve their climate ambitions, and hit the all-important net-zero target, a renewed focus on building enterprises that attract green social capital. 

Climate change brings upheaval to the world, bringing floods, droughts, heat waves, food scarcity and economic hardship, reducing productivity and hindering growth. To fight the consequences of climate change, societies across the region are waking up to the importance of climate action. Societal values and relationship networks are shifting accordingly, with more and more people starting to perceive climate action as an important issue. 

The climate conferences COP27, held in 2022 in Egypt, and COP28, which will be held in the United Arab Emirates, show that MENAP is willing to lead the charge in global climate action efforts. It is our belief that MENAP will also lead the charge in building the green social capital needed. 

Yet as we, as individual members of national communities, gear up to meet the challenge, an institutional void remains. When it comes to helping enterprises track and reduce their own emissions efficiently, accounting for these emissions cannot be regulated, without being accurately measured. Additionally, the purchase of carbon offsets must be streamlined and incentivized. Absolute transparency for both buyers and sellers of carbon offsets, and a general improvement in their ease of use, are needed for such initiatives to become effective economic transformations. 

We believe that alongside the development of new technologies such as carbon capture and storage (“CCS”), more efficient renewable energy or clean hydrogen fuels, the development of new software to tackle climate change is needed. We believe that finding new, efficient, ways of measuring, reporting and then reducing carbon emissions is of critical importance. We also believe that there should be easier access to mitigation projects outside of closed jurisdictional value chains. We believe that the problems enterprises face when tackling climate change are best solved through advancements in information technology. 

In this whitepaper, we will detail how Ahya — a unified, AI-enabled platform for scaling climate action will use advanced technology, and in particular artificial intelligence (“AI”), to facilitate the GCC’s transition towards net-zero with accuracy, transparency and equitable economic growth for the region.