Climate change and the digital revolution are probably the two biggest forces shaping the world we live in today. But it’s up to us to decide whether digital technologies will serve to solve or exacerbate our sustainability challenges.
Indeed, remote sensing equipment, supercomputers and artificial intelligence help us track, analyze and project data ranging from carbon emissions and deforestation trends to effects on biodiversity. Additionally, according to the framework titled Digital Disruptions for Sustainability, the digital age is creating “systemic opportunities for the large-scale social transformations required to build a just and climate-safe world.”
In a recent project supported by the ClimateWorks Foundation, researchers from the Sustainability in the Digital Age initiative and Future Earth compiled a database of 200 climate mitigation programs. digitally driven climate change. They demonstrated that these tools could foster data-driven political and climate leadership by mobilizing data to support decisions, digitally leveraging current strategies, inducing behavioral changes and automating them, and improved participation and empowerment.
However, we know that these same digital technologies also have extremely negative consequences on the environment and on society. The use of artificial intelligence to improve oil and gas exploration, extraction and production or to push us to an unsustainable level of consumption, or the consolidation of economic and political power in the hands of the elite digital, are a few examples of these consequences.
In addition to the way they are used, digital technologies themselves carry an environmental cost. According to 2015 estimates, information and communications technologies account for nearly 5% of global energy demand. This proportion is growing rapidly, as so much work has been done online since the pandemic, an irrevocable transfer in some cases. Reducing the carbon footprint of the world’s computing technologies is critical by increasing societal use of renewable energy, designing energy efficient algorithms, greening data centers and adopting a host of other optimization measures.
Nonetheless, in this decade of action, we must also harness digital capabilities to help change the norms, rules, power dynamics and mindsets that continue to limit our transformative action for sustainability.
In wealthy countries, citizen-voters consistently identify action on climate change as an urgent priority, even in times of pandemic. We rely on our governments to regulate sectors (including technology) that raise issues of health, safety and ethics. However, we must include climate and environmental issues among these questions.
Two great strengths of digital technologies, their ability to collect data and disseminate it in real time, have the power to transform market dynamics to promote transparency and collective mobilization at the local and global level. Like the activist shareholders who pressure companies to green their operations, increasing transparency according to the FAIR and CARE principles would lift the veil on how digital technologies are used and the intensity of this use, which enhance accountability. Thus better informed, citizens could recognize greenwashing attempts and encourage service providers – and ultimately companies in the financial sector and other fields – to choose targets and better energy sources for the population. and the planet.
PHOTO MICHAEL PROBST, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wind turbines and coal-fired power station in Luetzerath, Germany
Transparency is synonymous with accountability
Instead of waiting for governments to act decisively, big tech companies are already trying to reduce their environmental impact and helping their customers to do the same. However, the majority of companies and large organizations do not yet recognize the role of new technologies in accelerating the damage caused to the planet’s environment nor the priority to act for the climate at the intensity required to avoid damages. catastrophic repercussions. Meanwhile, the climate is heating up and racing. Adopting government incentives and regulations for digital sustainability as well as sending clear signals about the development of standards for monitoring, reporting and verifying data will produce better results in less time.
Given the ubiquity of digital technologies, new regulatory frameworks must be evidence-based and involve multiple stakeholders.
There is no shortage of data, but to design these new standards, we must first agree on how to assess the purpose and impact of digital technologies and their applications. The Digital Environmental Sustainability Coalition is uniquely positioned to initiate this work by bringing together governments, industry, research and citizen groups.
Digital technologies have already proven their power. Used wisely, they put the power to create greener and more inclusive economies in our hands.
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