Addressing the climate gap in digital technologies

Abstract

Key points: • The critical issue of climate impacts has been largely overlooked in global discussions concerning the digital economy. • Cryptocurrency, in particular, is associated with staggering energy use statistics. In an average year, Bitcoin consumes more energy than Finland. • Difficulties regulating digital energy use stem from the non-centralised, possibly anonymised and/or non-proprietary structures and global nature of many digital operations. • Digital platforms have information about the usage of digital services that, if shared with policymakers and researchers, could facilitate the development of sustainable solutions for digital value chains and beyond. • Policymakers must act to bridge sustainability policy and digital policy initiatives and ensure that policies reduce the environmental footprint stemming from life-cycle effects of digital technologies. • A key plank of such policy coordination should be the strengthening and mainstreaming of a principle of data minimization.