The United Nations Climate Conference COP31 (held November 9 to November 20, 2026) is off to a great start this year! I’ve had an incredible opportunity to listen to member countries share insights and ask key questions at the largest international summit to address climate change.
Day 1 opened with some key questions and discussions about multi-hazard and early warning systems and the need for: 1) technological advancement to gather data and address data gaps to understand hydrometeorological hazards and climate extremes, particularly in the Pacific region, and the points of failure; and 2) social response and resilience elements in tackling climate extremes.
Day 2 meetings at COP31 focused on topics closely aligned with my research area: ‘climate change knowledge and pro-climate social actions’. As part of the Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE), representatives from member nations highlighted the need to acknowledge the unique vulnerabilities that complicate climate action and adaptation efforts. They emphasized the need to broaden the focus from economic and technical needs to include the cultural and educational transformations required to transition to sustainable lifestyles—where people and systemic behavioral change are equally vital to long-term mitigation and resilience. The member nations also highlighted the need to leverage the six elements of ACE adopted in the Glasgow work programme on climate empowerment. The six elements of ACE include: education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information, and international cooperation on climate change – to achieve the objective of the Convention and the purpose and goals of the Paris Agreement.
Dr. Shravan Regret Iyer’s photograph capturing a dramatic weather event in Morondava in Madagascar won the prestigious United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 2021 Award. His photograph titled ‘Rainy Season in Madagascar’ is one of the 13 winning photographs featured in the WMO Calendar for 2021; the calendar marks the 70th anniversary of the organization.
In terms of climate change knowledge and pro-climate social actions, it is important to highlight the critical role media technologies play in shaping our society. My Ph.D. research focused on the role of VR first-person perspective in climate change knowledge outcomes and pro-climate social actions. My research explored whether the VR first-person perspective in climate change communication facilitates climate change knowledge, hope, fear, self-efficacy, and intended climate action, and offered insights on how allowing people to embody their virtual avatar through a VR first-person perspective while taking climate-friendly actions might empower participants and make them more confident (i.e., efficacious) in their ability to take action in the real world to reduce the impact of climate change. It is important to explore further the intricate relationship between society and media technology, which is also one of the two intertwined strands of my scholarly inquiry. The other strand of my scholarly inquiry explores the evolving landscape of science communication amid contemporary information challenges.
Dr. Iyer’s Ph.D. research exploring virtual reality first-person perspective in climate change knowledge outcomes and pro-climate social actions
Returning to my observations at COP31, the summit also included the global electrification pledge, in which member nations offered insights into the 35-by-35 Pledge proposed and unveiled by the COP31 presidency. The member nations further emphasized the need for partnerships in the energy transition, including helping underdeveloped countries secure basic energy infrastructure, where hospitals and schools still lack electricity. The Pacific island nations emphasized the need for cyclone-resilient projects and rooftop solar installations capable of withstanding severe cyclonic and hurricane-force winds.
Day 3 of COP31 focused on fighting climate-induced ecosystem decline with innovation and technology. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that promotes and protects intellectual property (IP) worldwide. As part of its WIPO GREEN initiative, it highlighted how digital monitoring, reporting, and verification technologies are helping in ecosystem restoration. Some key technologies used include satellite imagery, remote sensing, AI, LiDAR, drones, and sensors for large-scale restoration monitoring.
It should be noted that satellite imagery and remote sensing for ecosystem monitoring have been widely used in geospatial analysis over the past few decades. In 2016, I had an opportunity as an environment and wildlife journalist to cover a series of stories, including findings from researchers at the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), where they utilized a combination of remote sensing data and field census to highlight how the city of Bengaluru in India was left with only 1.5 million trees to support a population of 9.5 million, which in effect meant it had just one tree for every seven persons. As trees have made way for buildings, creating heat islands in pockets, temperatures have risen by 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius over the past three decades, they note. Another example is the use of remote sensing to show that Uttara Kannada district in the Western Ghats of India had only 25.62 percent evergreen forest cover (2013 data), down from 64.42 percent in 1979. Lush in greenery, Uttara Kannada district is home to dry deciduous, moist deciduous, evergreen to semi-evergreen, and coastal mixed deciduous forests due to its varied geographical terrain, and was denuding faster than the city of Bengaluru.
Over the past decade, now with the advancement in technology, a combination of AI, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging, which is an active remote sensing technology that uses pulsed lasers to measure exact distances and build detailed three-dimensional representations of surfaces and objects), drones, and other sensors are being widely used for monitoring and executing large-scale ecological and environmental restoration projects.
These technologies are now widely adopted in the following focus areas (as highlighted at COP31): 1) land-based systems, such as heat, drought, and disturbance; biodiversity loss and soil decline; and scaling land-based restoration. 2) freshwater, such as altering hydrological regimes; heat stress; and water quality. 3) ocean systems, which include ocean warming, ocean acidification, and ocean current disruption. 4) the cryosphere, which includes sea ice, glacial melting, and permafrost.
COP31 also brought together countries and stakeholders to share insights and scale up effective solutions to reduce methane emissions from waste, while addressing technical and financial barriers.