Quantum Computing for Environmental Protection: Opportunities, Risks and Responsible AI
T he environmental challenges of the twenty-first century are interconnected, nonlinear and increasingly difficult to manage. Climate change alters hydrological cycles and ecosystem distributions; industrial pollution affects human health and ecological integrity; energy transitions create new material demands; and biodiversity loss interacts with land-use change, food production and climate pressures. Addressing these problems requires reliable observations, predictive models, scientific experimentation, effective governance and technologies that can deliver measurable environmental improvements. Conventional high-performance computing, numerical simulation, remote sensing, statistical modelling and artificial intelligence already make substantial contributions to environmental science. Nevertheless, some problems remain computationally demanding. These include modelling complex molecular interactions, identifying promising materials, exploring large optimisation spaces and representi...
