February 26, 2025
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In the last month, our team attended two important events focusing on climatology and climate adaptation in Quebec and environmental excellence and sustainability initiatives in Canada, while world leaders gathered in Paris to discuss artificial intelligence issues.
Ouranos Symposium
On January 28 and 29, our Knowledge Mobilization Manager Andréa Ventimiglia, presented a scientific poster on the 10 New Insights in Climate Science 2024/2025 (French language version) at the Ouranos Symposium in Montreal. The 10th edition of the Ouranos Symposium brought together “nearly 550 participants from the scientific community and decision-making circles to share the most recent scientific advances in climatology and adaptation and to showcase practical resources for taking action.” Themes for the event covered a broad spectrum of climate issues, including biodiversity, adaptation in cities, regional issues (northern, coastal, forestry), water, economy, energy, and even the application of artificial intelligence in adaptation. Executive Director of Ouranos, Alain Bourque, noted “We live in a time of great upheaval, but it’s important to look at the good news. In particular: the science is developing, and it is increasingly being taken into account in decision-making in order to reduce the impacts of climate change.”
Read a full wrap-up of the Ouranos Symposium >
ECO IMPACT 2025
On February 12 and 13, Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Camilo Alejo attended ECO IMPACT 2025 in Calgary and participated in a panel on “AI for Sustainability: Navigating Opportunities, Risks, and Nature-Positive Solutions.” Dr. Alejo spoke on Equitable Futures for Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and examined the implications of using AI for environmental decision-making. The discussion represented an opportunity to highlight the need to approach AI critically in a way that is socially and environmentally sustainable. The overall theme for this year’s ECO IMPACT conference was “Powering Green Careers through Innovation and Technology” and emphasized the role of AI, automation, and advanced technologies in transforming the environmental sector to over 400 attendees.
Learn more about the NbS project >
Read more about ECO IMPACT 2025 >
AI Action Summit: Ensuring the development of trusted, safe and secure AI to benefit of all
From February 6 to 11, 2025, the AI Action Summit took place in Paris, France, bringing together government leaders, international organizations, representatives of civil society, the private sector, and the academic and research communities to discuss global collaboration and action on AI.
Discussions during the Summit focused on the International AI Safety Report 2025, published in January 2025 and led by Yoshua Bengio, supported by a panel of renowned international experts. Other topics included, combating information manipulation, strengthening cyber-resilience, protecting privacy and trust in AI governance.
A number of important initiatives on AI were also launched:
- INESIA: The French Institute for AI Evaluation and Security. “Through research, evaluation, and international collaboration, INESIA aims to promote human-centric and responsible AI. This also involves developing robust technical tools to guarantee security and mitigate AI-related risks.”
- Current AI: a public interest AI foundation launched by French president Emmanuel Macron centred on data, openness, and accountability that seeks to “build a future where open, trustworthy technology serves the public interest.”
- Coalition for Environmentally Sustainable Artificial Intelligence (AI): “A community of stakeholders to advance concrete initiatives for making Artificial Intelligence beneficial to our environmental goals.”
- French-language model leaderboard: “This trusted repository enables structured comparisons of AI models based on objective and transparent criteria. Its objective is clear: to improve the French-language performance of the best language models, regardless of where they were developed.”
The Summit culminated in the signing of the “Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet.” From the 100 countries present at the AI Action Summit, there were 64 signatories. Notably, the UK and US refused to sign. The declaration contains the the following main priorities:
- Promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides;
- Ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all
- Making innovation in AI thrive by enabling conditions for its development and avoiding market concentration driving industrial recovery and development
- Encouraging AI deployment that positively shapes the future of work and labour markets and delivers opportunity for sustainable growth
- Making AI sustainable for people and the planet
- Reinforcing international cooperation to promote coordination in international governance