Providing cities with critical environmental data to unlock climate solutions

Date

1:50 pm—2:10 pm · June 11, 2025

Room

Auditorium (This won't be livestreamed)

The climate emergency calls for systemic, global efforts to reduce emissions, transition energy systems, and make economies more sustainable. AI and collective action can help. Google provides several AI tools for cities to draw insights, to take action at scale and to respond to the challenges posed by climate change. Please note: This session won't be livestreamed or recorded.

Climate change is one of humanity’s greatest collective challenges, calling for systemic, global change to reduce emissions, transition energy systems, and make economies more sustainable. As cities account for more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, decisions about the way we operate our urban environments will play a particularly important role in the race to decarbonise.

AI and collective action can help create a sustainable future for everyone. A report by Google and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows that AI has the potential to help mitigate 5-10% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 — the equivalent of the total annual emissions of the European Union. 

Taking advantage of the promise of AI requires the ability to collect, structure and analyse data, an often time-consuming and costly process. Google provides several AI tools that cities can use to draw insights from data to take action at scale and to respond to the challenges posed by climate change.

This presentation will cover several real-world examples of how cities have harnessed the power of data and AI to inform policy, adapt infrastructure and guide urban planning. 

These include:

Project Greenlight, which uses Google AI and Maps driving trends to create smart recommendations for urban areas to adjust traffic patterns to reduce emissions. 

Solar Rooftop Potential, which estimates the technical solar potential of all buildings in a region and has been used by the city of Madrid to work towards its goal of covering 30% of electricity for municipal buildings with solar panels by 2030.

Project Air View, which provides street-level air quality data in multiple cities, and has helped the city of Copenhagen to set low-emission zones, and to explore how to build safe zones from pollution around schools and playgrounds in high-pollution areas.

Explore:

Project Greenlight https://sites.research.google/greenlight/

Rooftop solar potential https://insights.sustainability.google/places/ChIJC5uNqA7yLogRlWsFmmnXxyg/solar 

Project Air View https://sustainability.google/operating-sustainably/stories/airview/