ESG and Of Interest News
Researchers Have Ranked AI Models Based on Risk-and Found a Wild Range
August 15, 2024--Studies suggest that regulations could be tightened to head off AI misbehavior.
Bo Li, an associate professor at the University of Chicago who specializes in stress testing and provoking AI models to uncover misbehavior, has become a go-to source for some consulting firms.
These consultancies are often now less concerned with how smart AI models are than with how problematic-legally, ethically, and in terms of regulatory compliance-they can be.
Li and colleagues from several other universities, as well as Virtue AI, cofounded by Li, and Lapis Labs, recently developed a taxonomy of AI risks along with a benchmark that reveals how rule-breaking different large language models are. "We need some principles for AI safety, in terms of regulatory compliance and ordinary usage," Li tells WIRED.
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Source: wired.com
Hunger numbers stubbornly high for three consecutive years as global crises deepen: UN report
July 24, 2024-FAO-IFAD-UNICEF-WFP-WHO Joint Release
Around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published today by five United Nations specialized agencies.
The annual report, launched this year in the context of the G20 Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty Task Force Ministerial Meeting in Brazil, warns that the world is falling significantly short of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger, by 2030.
The report shows that the world has been set back 15 years, with levels of undernourishment comparable to those in 2008-2009.
Despite some progress in specific areas such as stunting and exclusive breastfeeding, an alarming number of people continue to face food insecurity and malnutrition as global hunger levels have plateaued for three consecutive years, with between 713 and 757 million people undernourished in 2023-approximately 152 million more than in 2019 when considering the mid-range (733 million).
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Source: ifad.org
African insights 2024-Democracy at risk-The People’s Perspective
July 17, 2024--Africa's democratic project faces challenging times. Since 2020, soldiers have pushed out elected governments in six countries. Three presidents have defied constitutional limits to claim third terms in office. Other leaders use subtler means to erode democracy, weakening checks on their authority and harassing the political opposition.
Non-compliance by member states frustrates the African Union's progress in enforcing democratic norms.
Until the late 1990s, not much was known about the values, preferences, or insights of Africans. The idea of polling African citizens seemed impossible, even laughable, to some observers. Experts, media pundits, and politicians purported to know what the people thought. Conventional wisdom held that Africans typically focused on economic and social development and did not care much about democracy or human rights.
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Source: allafrica.com
In a nod to resiliency, FEMA will take climate change into account when rebuilding
July 11, 2024--When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spends millions of dollars to help rebuild schools and hospitals after a hurricane, it tries to make the community more resilient than it was before the storm. If the agency pays to rebuild a school or a town hall, for example, it might elevate the building above the floodplain, lowering the odds that it will get submerged again.
That sounds simple enough, but the policy hinges on a deceptively simple question: How do you define "floodplain"? FEMA and the rest of the federal government long defined it as an area that has a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year. That so-called 100-year floodplain standard, though more or less arbitrary, has been followed for decades-even though thousands of buildings outside the floodplain go underwater every year.
Now FEMA is expanding its definition of the floodplain, following an executive order from President Joe Biden that forced government agencies to tighten rules about how they respond to the increasing risk of floods.
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Source: thebulletin.org
The oceans are heating so fast, some scientists call for a new "Category 6" hurricane classification
July 11, 2024--Hurricane Beryl, which slammed into Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, was supercharged by "absolutely crazy" ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel further violent storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.
Beryl left more than 2 million people without power after making landfall near Houston as a Category 1 storm, after having rampaged through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, with wind speeds reaching 165 miles per hour (265km/h), killing 11 people.
There has never been a category 5 Atlantic hurricane this early in the year before, with most major storms forming closer to September. Beryl, however, rapidly accelerated from a minor storm to a Category 4 event in just two days.
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Source: thebulletin.org
Power-hungry AI is driving a surge in tech giant carbon emissions. Nobody knows what to do about it
July 8, 2024--Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the world has seen an incredible surge in investment, development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. According to one estimate, the amount of computational power used for AI is doubling roughly every 100 days.
The social and economic impacts of this boom have provoked reactions around the world. European regulators recently pushed Meta to pause plans to train AI models on users' Facebook and Instagram data. The Bank of International Settlements, which coordinates the world's central banks, has warned AI adoption may change the way inflation works.
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Source: theconversation.com
NASA launches first satellite to study heat emissions at Earth's poles
July 2, 2024--The shoebox-sized CubeSats will measure the heat radiated from Earth's coldest regions.
This data will help scientists predict changes in sea, ice and weather patterns due to global warming.
For the first time, a NASA satellite has been launched with the purpose of improving the ability to predict climate change by measuring the heat that escapes from Earth's poles.
The satellite-the first of a pair- is in orbit following lift-off from Rocket Lab's Electron rocket in Māhia, New Zealand, on Saturday, NASA said.
"This new information-and we've never had it before-will improve our ability to model what's happening in the poles, what's happening in climate," said Karen St. Germain, Earth sciences research director at NASA, reported by AFP.
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Source: weforum.org
IMF Promoting Gender Equality and Tackling Demographic Challenges
June 11, 2024--Summary:
Two broad contrasting demographic trends present challenges for economies globally: countries with aging populations, often advanced economies and increasingly emerging markets, anticipate a significant shrinking of the labor force, with implications for growth, economic stability, and public finances.
Economies with rapidly growing populations, as is the case in many low-income and developing countries, will face a burgeoning young population entering the labor market in the next decades-a large potential to reap the demographic dividend if the right skills and economic and social conditions are in place.
This note highlights how gender equality, in both cases, can serve as a stabilizing factor to rebalance demographic trends. As decisions regarding fertility, human capital investment, and labor force participation are interlinked, policies should aim at relaxing households' time and resource constraints that condition these choices. This means that, in general, in advanced economies and emerging markets, policies should facilitate women's work–life choices and boost female participation in the labor market, whereas policies in low-income and developing countries should focus on reforms that narrow gender gaps in opportunities and support human capital accumulation.
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Source: imf.org
New report states 7-9 billion tonnes of CO2 must be sustainably removed per year to hit climate targets
June 5, 2024--The 2024 State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report co-led by researchers at the University of Oxford finds that around 7-9 billion tonnes of CO2 per year will need to be removed by mid-century from the atmosphere if the world is to meet the 1.5 °C Paris Agreement target.
The authors stress that reducing emissions is the primary way to achieve net-zero, but Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) has a critical role to play.
The authors incorporated sustainability criteria including multiple Sustainable Development Goals into their analysis, and their final figure for a "Paris-consistent" range of CDR was assessed based on these.
Currently just 2 billion tons per year are being removed by CDR, mostly through conventional methods like tree planting. Novel CDR methods= like biochar, enhanced rock weathering, direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)- contribute 1.3 million tonnes per year, less than 0.1% of the total. Methods which are effectively permanent account for only 0.6 million tonnes per year- less than 0.05% of the total. .
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Source: ox.ac.uk
Africa: Climate Change May Be Fuelling a Resurgence of Piracy Across Africa
May 24, 2024--In the churning waters off Nigeria, armed pirates in small skiffs speed towards a cargo ship. They clamber aboard, seizing control of the vessel and its valuable cargo. This isn't a scene from a swashbuckling film; it's a stark reality for seafarers in many parts of the world.
Piracy poses a threat to global shipping, trade and the safety of seafarers.
In 2020 alone, there were 135 maritime kidnappings, with the Gulf of Guinea off the west African coast accounting for over 95% of abductions. Pirates often subject hostages to violence, torture and even execution.
What's more concerning is that climate change seems to be making the problem worse. In regions like east Africa, climate change is devastating the coastal fisheries that people have depended on for generations.
Climate change is causing fish stocks to decline as some species migrate out of the reach of local fishermen.
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Source: allafrica.com
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