Nokia at COP 30

Artificial Intelligence is a transformative force affecting all aspects of our lives. Yet, sustainability and AI are often seen as opposing rather than complementary. Recognizing that sustainability must be adaptable—not a fixed ideal—is key to unlocking AI’s full potential in driving economic, environmental, and social progress.

Connectivity and advanced networks are the backbone of AI’s role in promoting sustainable practices, with Nokia playing a crucial part in this ecosystem.

How can we ensure AI’s resource consumption doesn’t outweigh its benefits? Maintaining focus on AI applications that enhance insights, automation, resource management, and operational efficiency while reducing waste and costs is vital.

In the context of circularity, AI enhances materials traceability, supports efficient resource use, and enables predictive maintenance—transforming potential waste into valuable assets. Could AI be the essential solution for a sustainable future? In this digital era, critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements are indispensable. They power technologies driving digital transformation, including AI and cloud infrastructure. Managing these resources carefully is vital to sustaining progress and enabling circular use.

In this panel, we explored how the integration of human and artificial intelligence can energize sustainability efforts by fostering agility, preparedness, optimized resource flows, transparency, resilient networks, adaptation, and risk reduction—all while keeping human oversight central.
 

Moderator

Subhagata Mukherjee
Vice President & Global Head of Sustainability, Nokia

Guests

The sustainable finance market reached USD 13.4 trillion in 2025 and is projected to grow to USD 24.3 trillion by 2030. The World Economic Forum estimates that Digital Transformation could generate $100 trillion in societal and industrial value by 2025.

Blended finance, innovation finance, green and sustainable bonds, digital development, government funds, and private capital are all competing for sustainable returns on investment. But what value do they hold if they remain overly complex, inaccessible, or constrained by risk? Do we truly understand these instruments well enough?

Asset managers, banks, and insurers are increasingly incorporating sustainability into their decision-making, product offerings, and risk evaluations. There is a growing number of projects financed in renewable energy, the adoption of more inclusive business models, and enhanced sustainability reporting and disclosures.

This session explored the role of finance, its accessibility, the influence of regulation and policy, and highlighted successful examples of financial tools used globally and regionally to support the digital and sustainable transition.
 

Moderator

Tuuli Kaskinen
CEO, Climate Leadership Council

Guests

Resilience is not only a humanitarian imperative but also a driver of innovation and growth. Today, the world focuses on disaster relief based on philanthropy when the disaster has already happened. Focus needs to move to pre-emptive actions based on digital infrastructure that is both resilient itself and provides smart predictive and analytic information that enables preparedness for disasters. Disaster resilience and preparedness require public-private collaboration.

Industrial sectors, including heavy and technology industries, must strengthen their climate resilience to safeguard operations and supply chains against increasing environmental disruptions. By leveraging robust digital infrastructure and predictive analytics, these industries can anticipate risks, minimize downtime, and ensure continuity even in the face of extreme climate events.

In this session, we explored the role of smart digital technologies in augmenting disaster resilience through advanced preventative rather than reactive network solutions. We also debated the roles of different players in building public-private partnerships to collaborate and move the needle on disaster resilient infrastructure and communities.
 

Moderator

Subhagata Mukherjee
Vice President & Global Head of Sustainability, Nokia

Guests

By the end of 2024, 2.6 billion people remained unconnected globally, and many others underserved. The result of climate change are expected to impact, and in some cases, already are impacting the most vulnerable. And the most affected are the least connected.

This not only affects local communities but slows global progress.

Digital technologies, connectivity and digital skills can enable and equalize, allowing communities to create their own economic growth, their own climate resilience and their own contributions to fighting climate change.

This panel brought together experts from tech, local corporations, NGOs and government to share how technology can empower communities – providing insight, access to information and smart solutions that help them prosper, adapt and innovate in their everyday context.
 

Moderator

Heidi Kalmari
Sustainability communications lead and author, Miltton

Guests