1131. Green Digital Diplomacy: Time for the EU to Lead
- Author:
- Patryk Pawlak and Fabio Barbero
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- European Union Institute for Security Studies
- Abstract:
- In the second that just elapsed, over 116 terabytes of data were exchanged throughout the internet, an amount comparable to ten times that produced by the Hubble Space Telescope in one year. Data has become an essential resource for economic growth, job creation and societal progress. It will ‘reshape the way we produce, consume and live’. However, our increasingly digital way of life comes at a cost for the environment. The 2020 speech ‘The state of the planet’ by UN Secretary-General António Guterres made it clear: the world economy needs to transform to embrace a sustainable economic model with cleaner infrastructure, including digital and internet infrastructure. It is a global problem that requires a concerted international effort. And yet the environmental impact of new technologies is hardly addressed as a foreign policy issue. The EU–Japan Green Alliance signed in May 2021, despite being relatively comprehensive, does not make any reference to the environmental challenges of digital transition. The partnership between the European Commission and Breakthrough Energy Catalyst to boost investments in critical climate technologies focuses on green hydrogen, direct air capture, long-duration energy storage and sustainable aviation fuels, but not on the information technology sector. This is puzzling given that data centres that power the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector generate up to 2 % of global carbon emissions, a number comparable to the aviation sector. The ICT sector accounts for around 7 % of global electricity use, but according to certain predictions, it could be using one fifth of all the world’s electricity by 2025. By the same year, the ICT sector may be responsible for 5.5 % of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If the ICT sector were a country, this would make it the fifth largest polluter in the world, after China, the United States, India and Russia. Consequently, any international actor aspiring to global leadership on climate change needs to look beyond the energy consumption, GHG emissions and natural resources related to design, production and end-of-life of the digital sector. To be responsible digital players, states need to address the environmental cost of using digital services that rely on large volumes of data and to promote green solutions as part of their international digital engagement strategies. For the EU’s foreign policy, this means embracing ‘green digital diplomacy’ as one of the priorities. Such an approach would bring digital and climate – two of the EU’s key policy priorities – under the same roof and contribute to promoting a ‘European way, balancing the flow and wide use of data, while preserving high privacy, security, safety and ethical standards’. It also offers a new opening for the EU’s commitment to strengthening multilateralism and a rules-based international order, including through setting norms and principles for the world’s digital transition, and the EU’s capacity-building and development cooperation.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, European Union, Data, and Digital Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe