Now or Never: Tackling Climate Change with IoT Solutions

On September 22, 2020, another iconic landmark was added to New York: the Colossal Climate Clock that counts down to the global deadline for irreversible climate change. According to the current clock count, there are slightly more than 7 years left to take action for preservation and change towards sustainable livelihoods and industrial activities. One of the critical contributors to climate change is deforestation, which accounts for 17% of all global carbon emissions.

Huawei Technologies Philippines (Huawei) is pivoting the application of IoT technologies for the deforestation use case in collaboration with the Philippines' Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The company deployed its first Rainforest Connection Program in the first quarter of 2020. As part of the program, Huawei deploys its cloud AI RFCx to develop models to detect the sounds of spider monkeys and chainsaws used for illegal logging. Huawei uses "Guardians," upcycled smartphones that can detect sounds within a 3 km range.

There is an influx of IoT solutions and technologies for carbon monitoring and sustainable electricity usage. For more details, see the ABI Research report IoT Analytics Services for Oil and Gas Market (AN-5322). However, one of the most underdeveloped niches of the market is the solution to tackle deforestation and combat biodiversity loss. The reasons behind the lack of such solution deployments are straightforward: the lack of investment, returns, and expertise in audio-enabled applications.

Therefore, one of the significant impacts of solutions like Huawei's is its ability to stop illegal logging and prevent deforestation through leveraging cloud AI and sensor technology. Currently, the project is deployed in 11 countries across 5 continents and covers more than 3,300 km2 of rainforests. While there are regulations on a national level to prevent illegal logging, the environmental regulations are not vigorously enforced, especially in the developing world. Hence, the IoT solution can provide access to information and data (i.e., illegal logging) where people and authorities don't usually have access.

Whereas the financial attractiveness of eco-driven and pro-ecological solutions is yet to become a reality, there are early movers in the market that are approaching climate change with a commercial perspective and contributing to much-needed change.

• Intel, in partnership with Inmarsat and the NGO RESOLVE, came up with a camera-based anti-poaching solution. TrailGuard AI is made possible through image processing at the edge and satellite connectivity. TrailGuard AI utilizes AI chipsets produced by Intel and satellite connectivity by Inmarsat (using L-band and Broadband Global Area Network satellite modems) to detect poachers entering Africa's wildlife reserves before they endanger the lives of rare animals. In collaboration with National Geographic, from 2019, the solution has been deployed in 100 reserves in Serengeti and Garamba, with plans to expand to Southeast Asia and South America.
• The NASA and USGS project Landsat provides high-resolution images of the Earth's surface to support decision-making regarding land practices. In 2020, Landsat 9 will be launched; data from it is freely available and is used to further research on changes in forestry, animal migrations, and others. One of the recent projects was launched by the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab, where a model was created that triggers alerts for deforestation activities. This practice was taken as an example for the VIIRS project, which creates fire alerts.

IoT solutions are becoming an active tool to fight deforestation and climate change with features like instant communication, audio and video analytics, and other big data solutions alongside the sensor and satellite technologies. As those technologies grow in applications, there is a significant influx of investment into smart cities and resilient cities amid climate change and more extreme weather fluctuations. According to the ABI Research presentation Resilience Technologies and Approaches for Smart Cities (PT-2251), it is forecasted that public spending on resilience in the world will reach US$335 billion by 2024. It is expected that the next step would be the growth of commercial opportunities for environmental resilience and eco-friendly technology-enabled projects that would energize the real environmental difference.