Expert Workshop on Digitalisation Narratives and Climate Change Mitigation: Synthesis Report

Wilson, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8164-3566, Verdolini, E., Kumar, P., & Eker, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-132X (2025). Expert Workshop on Digitalisation Narratives and Climate Change Mitigation: Synthesis Report. IIASA Report. Laxenburg, Austria: IIASA 10.5281/zenodo.15024068.

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Abstract

35 scientists and industry representatives gathered at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) outside Vienna in Austria on May 13-14, 2024, to build understanding of how both current and future trajectories of digital transformation impact emission-reduction efforts. This expert workshop on “Digitalisation Narratives and Climate Change Mitigation” was motivated by the weak explicit consideration of digitalisation in future scenarios and modelling assessments used to inform global climate policy.

Participants explored the impacts of digitalisation on energy, materials, firms, markets, lifestyles, and society, and what these impacts mean for greenhouse gas emissions. Workshop activities and insights in this report are organised in three parts: digitalisation impact pathways; future narratives for digitalisation; and digitalisation in the SSP scenario framework used in climate change analysis.

In sum, this synthesis report: (i) maps out the complexity and pervasiveness of digitalisation impacts across society and the economy; (ii) demonstrates how digitalisation is a double-edged sword with both positive and negative effects on jobs, on sustainable growth, and on user engagement and empowerment; (iii) counters a naïve perception that rapid digital transformation is necessarily aligned with climate goals; (iv) shows how firm and household-level digitalisation impacts have wider systemic consequences; (v) identifies common areas of understanding including on the importance of tackling the digital divide, fast paced AI developments, and societal risks from misinformation; (vi) exposes fault lines in expert opinion on the need for broad vs. narrow digital governance.

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