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Catalyzing Climate Resilience

Wildfires are no longer rare, isolated events. They have become more frequent, more intense, and more destructive, especially in regions already grappling with hotter, drier conditions. In Europe alone, we’ve seen major fires in Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, and even parts of Scandinavia; burning forests, cropland, and communities that have lived there for generations. In Latin America, fire seasons have extended for months. The fires have also become more intense. According to data from INPE, the Brazilian forest lost more than 25 million hectares to fire in 2022. Globally, it looks like we're going to see more fires in the future, even in areas that haven't experienced them before. Still, the majority of fires are not noticed until after it has spread. Monitoring occurs through the use of human hands. Very sluggish response. The next frontier in fire defense is speed, as the interval between ignition and calamity is getting shorter due to climate change.

Climate tech startup Umgrauemeio is using its AI-powered platform, Pantera, to make significant advancements in forest fire prevention and environmental protection. But before we get into the technical, let’s appreciate the brains behind the Brazilian tech startup Umgrauemeio, which is Portuguese for 1.5 °C. Rogerio Cavalcante, the founder, is a seasoned player in Brazil’s startup world. He kicked off the company in 2016 with an ambitious idea: that tackling climate adaptation would need more than just fresh tools. It would call for entirely new operating systems. Cavalcante gave up his shipping business so he could work full-time on keeping people safe from climate change. He met co-founder Eimi Arikawa at the BNDES Garagem startup. They both had the same goal: to combine precision farming with digital innovation. 1.5 °C focuses on time and terrain to put out the fires before it gets hellish. Pantera's real-time engine is powered by CTO Antonio Leblanc, who has a background in systems design and artificial intelligence. Where there is smoke, there is a fire and Pantera will sniff smoke out in just 3 seconds.

The Pantera platform is built on an AI-powered detection system that sees quicker, farther, and smarter than any human observer. Its 360-degree, high-definition cameras monitor the landscape day and night, detecting fires within three seconds over a 20-kilometer radius, or 125,000 hectares. This is a significant improvement over traditional techniques, which can take up to 48 hours to detect, particularly in distant places. Pantera, however, does more than merely observe; it also knows where to look. Its algorithm finds high-risk areas based on historical burn data, temperature, humidity, wind, and human activity patterns, then prioritises attention where fires are most likely to start.

1.5°C is constructing a system behind the scenes, which makes it more than just a smart tool. One of the biggest wildfire detection networks in Latin America, Pantera is discreetly expanding its footprint with the deployment of over 137 towers and the surveillance of over 17.5 million hectares, 10 million of which are native forests. The system improves in intelligence for every additional hectare. Although Pantera's predictive models are powered by this data density, it also introduces network effects, which are tougher to reproduce. Having more land allows for better views. The results are better when the insights are better. With each new deployment, 1.5°C strengthens its position since better outcomes attract more clients.

Pantera now connects brigades, NGOs, and corporate landowners throughout Brazil's Pantanal, the world's biggest tropical wetland, on a single platform. It has helped find hundreds of fire beginnings, get water and people to the proper place, and stop an estimated 5 million tonnes of CO₂ from being released, all while keeping sensitive areas safe. Pantera has detected approximately 25,000 fires in Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal biomes. 1.5 °C says that its deployments have prevented over 18 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, a significant policy and financial impact. 1.5 °C is currently a SaaS company that licenses its Pantera platform to big sugar mills, pulp and paper firms, and other land-intensive agribusinesses in Brazil. These areas are at some of the highest danger for wildfires, and they generally don't have good insurance, so early detection is both important and useful. Additionally, as businesses start to associate fire visibility with premiums and financing terms, risk and insurance products are on the horizon. Reducing fire hazards not only safeguards business assets, but it could potentially unlock wealth.

Climate Crisis Served Hot

Despite the fact that farmers are among those who are most severely affected by extreme weather events, scientists have had a difficult time quantifying the impact that climate change would have on food supply. One of the most significant sources of uncertainty is the degree to which farmers will attempt to adjust to higher temperatures by altering the kind of crops they cultivate, the timing of their planting and harvesting, and the methods by which they cultivate them.

A new study published in Nature says that as the planet warms up by 1C, yields of maize, soy, rice, wheat, cassava, and sorghum could drop by as much as 120 calories per person per day. Think of it as not having breakfast every single day! “In a high-warming future, we’re still seeing caloric productivity losses in the order of 25% at global scale,” said Andrew Hultgren, an environmental economist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and lead author of the study. According to the report, although climate adaptation in farming wouldn't completely stop productivity losses, increasing wages and modifications to farming methods might reduce them by roughly 25% by 2050 and by 33% by 2100.

A team of researchers from the United States and China evaluated data from 12,658 areas in 54 nations to assess how food producers have adapted to various climate change scenarios. Results showed that by the year 2100, relative yields for crops like soy will have dropped by 26% in a high heating scenario. This was after taking into consideration adaptability, income increases, and the impact of plants growing quicker due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. The study discovered that soy would lose 16% of its output, wheat 7.7%, and maize 8.3% under a more realistic heating scenario. Researchers predicted a 4.9% increase in rice yields as a result of climate change, the only increase among the six crops they examined. “In a lot of climate impact studies, the global poor get hurt, and that’s true here too,” said Hultgren. “What is different from a lot of the previous work out there is that relatively rich, well-to-do portions of the world that are bread baskets are actually hit the hardest.” The study, which employs econometric approaches to assess the overall effect of adaptation, differs with prior studies whose model is comprehensively on biophysical interactions.

And with the world's population expected to reach 10 billion by the end of the century, we can't count on flawless adaptation to save us. Cutting food losses and wastage throughout the supply chain reduces the need for additional land and water resources, thereby improving the resilience of the food systems. Perhaps, precision agriculture technologies and new genomic techniques can improve crop tolerance to heat, drought, and pests. Innovations in fertilizer technology can also enhance plant protection, although technology alone is not sufficient. Another aspect of technology would be support services such as early warning systems that prevent any loss to food productivity with the likes of 1.5°C. A holistic approach combining sustainable agricultural techniques, technological innovation, food system changes, supportive policies, ecosystem management, and research collaboration complements climate adaptation to safeguard Europe's food production in a changing climate.

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