Climate and digital

The coming decades will be characterised by two major technology challenges: climate change mitigation and digitalisation. The technological transition associated with climate change follows clear and well-defined goals. In contrast, digitalisation does not follow a clear objective and is commonly understood as a self-driving process of technological progress.

With regard to climate action, it is imperative to accelerate the technological transition to a low-carbon economy while bearing in mind that the effects of climate change are unjustly distributed. As for digitalisation, guidance is necessary to avoid adverse side effects, such as the threat of mass surveillance arising from data monopolies and the unequal distribution of gains and access to digital technologies.

This webinar discussed the positive and negative interactions across processes of technological advances involved in both climate change mitigation and digitalisation. The related policy brief already showed how current EU policy strategies take account of these interactions, and proceeded by outlining 15 principles around which policies for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and compensation should be designed to ensure coherence and justice and to leverage the greatest synergies with the ongoing process of digitalisation.

Presenter:

• Kerstin Hötte, Postdoctoral Researcher at Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change, research fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and associate researcher at Bielefeld University.

Discussants:

• Anna Berti Suman, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the European Commission Joint Research Centre
• Mauro Santaniello, Associate Research Fellow at the United Nations University – Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies

Moderation by Gerard Rinse Oosterwijk, Digital policy analyst, FEPS.

For more information, please contact Luis Sáez Jiménez, FEPS Policy Officer luis.saez@feps-europe.eu.

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This webinar arises from the ‘Climate mainstreaming: Breaking down the silos’ series, intended to highlight the multidisciplinary approach required to fully understand the consequences of the climatic crisis we are living in. 

• Climate justice principles
• Climate and health
• Climate and gender 
• Climate and digital