Latest news with #ParisSummit
The Independent
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
It is in the West's interest to prevent nations' climate destruction – as well as its duty
It is doubly tragic that the very countries most damaged by climate change are often also some of the poorest, and thus least able to cope with its terrifying effects. This has been, or should have been, clear for some time. At successive climate conferences such as the Paris summit and the Cop series, island states threatened by rising sea levels and sub-Saharan nations suffering accelerating desertification, for example, have pleaded with the West and the emerging industrial economies to restrain greenhouse gas emissions and – of more immediate importance – help with measures to mitigate and defend against the effects of long-term alterations in weather systems. Now, research undertaken for The Independent 's Rethinking Global Aid project by ODI Global, a think tank, reveals the extent to which recent and continuing cuts in international aid programmes are leaving the world's most vulnerable communities defenceless in the face of existential challenges. The case studies, which we report on today, are graphic and compelling. Somalia, a nation long broken by political violence and terrorism, has lost billions of pounds worth of agricultural production as previously productive lands are left barren by higher temperatures and lower rainfall. That compounds an already dire lack of economic resources for the state to support itself, forces people to move to other places to find a living, and adds to the global migration crisis, just as it has across a broad band of the continent, from the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. Or take the distressing example of Dominica, a peaceful Commonwealth nation where the proportional impact of climate change on its economy is even larger. The ODI research suggests that it has lost a tenth of its GDP to anthropogenic warming. Haiti and Grenada are other Caribbean countries that have also had to deal with extreme weather events and devastating hurricanes – but without the resources that enable their wealthier neighbours, notably the United States, to put defences in place and recover from disaster. Poorer countries, by contrast, are not recovering and are being increasingly deprived of the means to look after themselves. It bears repeating that none of these developing economies is an industrial power. They did not enjoy the benefits of economic growth that plentiful and cheap fossil fuels brought through successive industrial revolutions, nor the high living standards that prevail in the nations still most profligate in their use of nature's bounty. The aggregate figures calculated by ODI Global are difficult to comprehend but point to a huge toll on human misery. The ODI study covered 53 low-income countries, including 36 small-island developing states in the Caribbean, Pacific and the Atlantic, and 17 countries in the Sahel and the Greater Horn of Africa. Since the year 2000, these countries have suffered $395bn in losses and damages from extreme weather events, some $156bn of which can be attributed to the climate crisis. This work, therefore, is not 'climate alarmism' but a sober, realistic assessment of the effects of what is happening. It's also a call to action for richer nations, troubled as they are, to face their responsibilities, as well as to act in their own self-interest. Fairness, therefore, demands that the rich countries should do more to assist the poorer citizens of the world to mitigate the effects of climate change. Mike Childs, head of policy at Friends of the Earth, puts this point well: 'If the UK suffered tens of billions of pounds worth of damage caused by other countries' actions, our government and the public would rightfully be shouting from the rooftops about the injustice.' Instead, of course, we have seen the United States abolish its development agency and many of its aid projects. Even European nations previously relatively generous in their approach, such as the UK, have pared back spending due to domestic political pressures and the growing spectre of Russian expansionism. Yet it is very much in the interest of the rich world, broadly speaking the global North, to prevent nations from being destroyed by famine, flood and general economic dislocation – which itself can trigger armed conflicts. The most obvious and pressing reason for maintaining as much international development effort as possible is the prospect of yet more flows of refugees crossing continents, movements of people which are already at historic levels and have caused political turmoil in advanced economies unwilling or unable to take them in. The most alarming prospect is presented by Bangladesh, where some 20 million people could be displaced by flooding of their homes by 2050. Recent crises such as the Covid pandemic, wars and the spike in energy prices have made the global North more preoccupied with its own problems and pushed the environment down the agenda. Yet the climate crisis has not disappeared, and the efforts to achieve net zero emissions of greenhouse gases should remain a goal for the whole of humanity. Climate change is, and should be, a transcendent issue. It is still not too late to avert the ultimate catastrophe of unpredictable climate breakdown. Alongside such global efforts, though, are smaller-scale projects that can prevent communities in imminent jeopardy of destruction from reaching something like a sustainable future. Sadly, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding and the failed harvests will continue, whatever happens – and it falls to the world's most powerful economies to try to mitigate the consequences. It's for the good of all.
India Gazette
21-05-2025
- Business
- India Gazette
Shanghai Consul General Pratik Mathur addresses technology symposium of Singapore Chamber of Commerce
New Delhi [India], May 21 (ANI): Shanghai Consul General Pratik Mathur addressed the Singapore Chamber of Commerce annual technology symposium, one of the region's most prominent business forums. In a post on X, the Consulate General of India in Shanghai said that Mathur's participation underscored the growing global recognition of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for responsible and inclusive artificial intelligence (AI). PM Modi advocated for the responsible use of AI during the Paris Summit. In his remarks, CG Mathur highlighted India's dynamic AI startup ecosystem, which is driving innovation across key sectors including urban development, healthcare, clean energy, and agriculture in the world's fastest-growing major economy. The X post added, 'India's AI vision shines in Shanghai. CG @PratikMathur1 participated in the annual technology symposium of the Singapore Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest and oldest business chambers in the region.' 'The invitation was a reflection of the global recognition of Prime Minister's vision of harnessing AI responsibly, for good, and for all, as articulated in the Paris Summit,' the post added. The post further added, 'In his remarks today, CG highlighted India's vibrant AI startup ecosystem that is driving change in the world's fastest-growing major economy, creating opportunities and revolutionizing diverse sectors such as urban renewal, healthcare, clean energy, and agriculture.' In continuation of the commitment, India and the European Union reiterated their commitment to safe, secure, and sustainable AI in March of this year and to promote this vision globally. As part of this, the European AI Office and India AI Mission have agreed to deepen cooperation, encourage an ecosystem of innovation, and foster information exchange. They have also agreed to enhance cooperation on large language models. In furtherance of the vision of Making AI in India and Making AI Work for India, the Union government last year approved the comprehensive national-level IndiaAI mission with a budget outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore. The IndiaAI mission is to establish a comprehensive ecosystem that catalyses AI innovation through strategic programs and partnerships in the public and private sectors. By democratizing computing access, improving data quality, developing indigenous AI capabilities, attracting top AI talent, enabling industry collaboration, providing startup risk capital, ensuring socially impactful AI projects and bolstering ethical AI, it will drive responsible, inclusive growth of India's AI ecosystem. (ANI)
Telegraph
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Baltic States must be part of the Ukraine talks
The Prime Minister's summit in support of Ukraine was certainly a step in the right direction. As has been widely noted, Britain is now resuming its natural role as the most important democratic European great power. The UK government was quicker than most of the continent to recognise the Russian threat, and it has done a great deal to try to contain it through training Ukrainian troops, supplying anti-tank weapons to Kiev early, warning (together with the US) of an imminent attack in February 2022, and in many other ways. It is therefore very regrettable that the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have been even further ahead of the curve in sounding the alarm about Mr Putin, were not invited to London. This comes on top of the Paris Summit last week, to which they were not invited either. The exclusion is the more unfortunate because we Europeans (rightly) objected to the Trump's administration's exclusion not only of the Ukrainians but also of 'Europe' at the discussions in Saudi Arabia which sparked the current crisis. Unsurprisingly, all three leaders of the Baltic states were reported to be 'very upset' at their treatment. Sir Keir Starmer tried as best he could to mitigate the damage by convening a hasty online conference with the leaders of the three Baltic States. According to the Asta Skaisgiryte, the chief advisor to the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, the Prime Minister apologised to them and promised that 'next time such things will be avoided'. What is worrying, though, is the absence of any satisfactory explanation for their absence in the first place. At the very least the Estonian leader could have represented the other two. Of course, not all European countries could be invited. It made little sense, for example, to bring in neutral Malta, Austria and the Republic of Ireland. It would also have been silly to have Hungary's Victor Orban who is effectively a Russian ally. But why have Spain, which spends well short of the Nato target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence, and has shown relatively little interest in confronting Russia? Why the Czechs, who do contribute a lot to Ukraine, but are less significant than the Baltics? The offence is compounded by the fact that the UK knows the Baltic states well. British troops have been deployed in Estonia as part of the deterrence mission ever since Putin's illegal annexation of Crimea. The Baltic is literally Britain's front line in the east under the Nato Article Five guarantee. Moreover, the Estonians are world leaders in national resilience and drone warfare development. They are major suppliers of the Ukrainian war effort. Why would we not want their expertise at the summit? Ever since 1940, when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were occupied by the Soviet Union, following the Hitler-Stalin pact, the three Baltic States have feared abandonment by the West. This is not what is happening here, but if we want to avoid giving that impression greater sensitivity will be required in the future. The whole episode shows that not only the British public but also the British national security establishment needs more knowledge and more understanding of the Baltic. It is a region with which Britain has been closely connected for hundreds of years and with which we are now bound up in a community of fate. The United Kingdom is right to captain the defence of Europe, but we need to bring our best players with us.
Axios
03-03-2025
- Science
- Axios
Axios interview: Google's Hassabis warns of AI race's hazards
The more artificial intelligence becomes a race, the harder it is to keep the powerful new technology from becoming unsafe, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told Axios in a wide-ranging interview at this week's AI Action Summit in Paris. Reality check: Rules to control AI only work when most nations agree to them, Hassabis said, and that's only getting harder — as made clear by the summit's inconclusive outcome. "It seems to be very difficult for the world to do," said Hassabis — who won a Nobel Prize last year and now leads Google's AI work. "Just look at climate. There seems to be less cooperation. That doesn't bode well." Indeed, at the Paris Summit, the U.S. and U.K. refused to sign on to a communique on AI safety that had already been criticized for lacking enforceable commitments. The big picture: Hassabis said the need for norms and rules grows as the world gets closer to so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI), meaning advanced AI systems that can do a broad range of tasks faster and better than humans. "But it has to be international," Hassabis said. "Otherwise you'll get nations competing and other things like that." Hassabis doesn't have a specific recipe for creating that international cooperation, but he said it will need to involve governments, companies, academics and civil society. "It is too important for it only to be one set of people working on this," he said. "It's going to require everybody to come together — hopefully, in time." Between the lines: Hassabis also stressed the need for a diverse collection of people to be involved in the development of AI — even as companies, including Google, move away from their programs to diversify their workforces, which remain highly white and male. "Research advances are better with a big diversity of thinking in your team," he said. "That's kind of well-proven in science and in research." Having a diverse set of voices in the room when it comes to deploying technologies is even more critical, he said, "because that's when it affects people's lives." "I think that's where you know you want the people that are being affected to have a say as to how those technologies get deployed," he said. Open source AI has become linked in the public mind with both Meta and China, but Hassabis said Google is a "huge proponent of open science and open source." "We've open sourced many, many, many things in the past and obviously published almost all of our innovations, including transformers and AlphaGo, and all of the things that the modern industry is built on," he said. "Clearly that makes progress go faster." But he warned that the spread of open source AI only sharpens the technology's root ethical dilemma: "How do you stop bad actors repurposing general purpose technology for harmful ends?" "Powerful agentic systems are going to be built, because they'll be more useful, economically more useful, scientifically more useful. ... But then those systems become even more powerful in the wrong hands, too." The bottom line: Hassabis said it's going to take effort to manage societal change even if the tech industry does manage to develop AI safely. "I think there needs to be more time spent by economists, probably, and philosophers and social scientists on what do we want the world to be like, even if we get everything right, post AGI," he said. "I'm surprised there's not very much discussion about that, given the relatively short timelines."
Express Tribune
20-02-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
AI revolution : reflecting on the opportunities and challenges
Listen to article On February 10 and 11, a major gathering brought together in Paris more than 1,000 representatives of governments from five continents, international organisations, business circles, artists, academics and researchers and NGOs to discuss a major topic and challenge for our time: how will we - individuals, governments, international organisations, businesses, civil societies - face the extraordinary opportunities and changes that AI offers us, today and in the future. The need for this Summit convened by President Emmanuel Macron stems from an observation: we are facing a fundamental, intellectual, industrial and technological revolution that carries the potential for a profound paradigm shift in our societies, in our relationships with knowledge, work, information, culture and language. Concretely, some 300 million jobs could be affected in the years to come by the development of AI. As President Macron stated: AI is "a tremendous technological and scientific revolution for progress and in the service of progress. So, it is first of all, obviously, technology, science, the improvement of lots of research, transformation of many sectors, but our conviction is that it must be done in the service of humanity, and therefore to live better". AI is not a neutral technology. It can offer the best and also generate risks and raise legitimate concerns, such as the reliability of information, the protection of individual rights, the very concept of human creativity, among other questions, many of which are not precisely known yet. AI is therefore a political and civic issue that requires close international dialogue between world's governments, researchers, legal experts, intellectuals, businesses and civil society. France wished to gather all these actors to reflect on these essential questions in order to pursue the momentum initiated by previous summits in the UK and the Republic of Korea. With more than 750 start-ups in the AI sector - the largest number in Europe - and more than 36,000 people employed in this sector, France was all the more destined to host this Summit. France also has 9 AI clusters based in different cities and the largest number of AI laboratories in Europe. In 2024, 3.3 billion euros were dedicated to AI in all sectors combined, which represented 700 projects. Moreover, 360 million euros were dedicated to training and research. As a result, France has 40,000 talented data scientists specialising in AI and this number is expected to increase to 100,000 trained per year. Beyond its tech ecosystem, France was keen to highlight one priority: think together about how the world will succeed in the AI shift and enable AI to fulfil its initial promise of progress and emancipation within a framework of common trust. In this regard, the Paris Summit aimed at creating a common dynamic for reflection and action over the long term, around three main objectives and principles: 1) Allow equal AI access to as many people as possible so that everyone benefits from it and develops new ideas to realise its full potential. 2) Jointly and imperatively lead the two major transitions of our time: the environment and technology. While AI must play its full part in combating global warming and preserving ecosystems, it is currently on an unsustainable trajectory in terms of energy. The latest forecasts suggest that as early as 2026, energy needs for the AI sector will be ten times higher than in 2023. In order to cope with this environmental challenge, the French government has launched a coalition bringing together around 30 companies with the aim of promote a more resource-efficient framework. 3) Collectively build an effective and inclusive AI governance system not limited to questions of ethics and security. We certainly need to discuss issues such as the protection of fundamental freedoms, intellectual property or access to data. But we also need to bring everyone around the table to discuss topics such as global AI governance or the fight against market concentration. In addition to state actors, private actors and civil society must be included in order to define a common architecture for international AI governance. In line with these challenges, President Macron has announced 109 billion euros of investments in AI in the coming years, in France essentially, to which both French and foreign investors, public and private, will contribute. Priority will be given to the construction of data centres. As many as 35 sites throughout France are ready to host data centres. In this regard, several announcements have been made: = As part of a joint Framework Agreement between France and the UAE, investments of up to 50 billion euros are planned, supported by the MGX fund, with the aim of creating a 1 GW campus dedicated to AI. = Canadian fund Brookfield is planning an investment of 20 billion euros by 2030, including 15 billion euros for the construction of new data centres. = American company Digital Reality announced an investment of more than 5 billion euros to finance data centres in the Paris region and the city of Marseille. = British company Fluidstack has entered into a partnership with the French government to deploy the world's largest supercomputer for AI with an initial investment of 10 billion euros. French companies are fully part of this revolution; the leading Mistral AI start-up company will deploy its first data centre in the Paris region. Many other commitments were made during the Paris AI Summit by French (Eclairion, Iliad, Sesterce), American (Amazon, Apollo, Equinix, Prologis), Swedish (Evroc) and Japanese (Telehouse) groups. At the institutional level, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reaffirmed the EU's ambitions in developing AI, stating the EU's aims to mobilise 200 billion euros as part of the "EU AI Champions Initiative". Around 60 major industrial groups have announced their involvement in this initiative, including Airbus, L'Oréal and Mercedes. Tech groups such as Mistral AI and Spotify will also be involved. As President Macron said this Summit exemplifies the reawakening of the AI European strategy. In France, the public investment bank BpiFrance announced a contribution of 10 billion euros over 4 years for the development of AI. France is proud and happy to have contributed to this objective which was concluded by the signing of a declaration for an "open", "inclusive" and "ethical" AI by some 60 countries as well as by the EU and the African Union Commission. With its technology and its talented researchers, scientists, entrepreneurs and representatives of civil society, Pakistan has a major role to play in this collective work. I am pleased to know that representatives of Pakistani civil society - such as Nighat Dad, President of the Digital Rights Foundation - participated in the Paris Summit. Following on from the Summit, the French Embassy in Pakistan wishes to engage with Pakistani partners to contribute to the achievement of the great ambitions displayed by the hundreds of participants gathered in Paris who shared very rich and substantial discussions, with one essential priority: ensuring that the extraordinary revolution benefits every human being, their progress, their individual creativity and freedom.
