Role of global forums in leveraging digital and software innovation to address climate change

Abstract

Global forums such as the Conference of Parties (COP) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have mentioned the need to leverage the full potential of digital and software technologies to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change. However, the correlation between digitalization and its negative impact on climate change has not been on the global forum's agenda yet. This research aims to explore the state of efforts by global forums in leveraging digital and software innovation for climate change. And it also aims to investigate the importance of bringing to the attention of the global forums the climate change impacts of software innovation and development. The study consists of 2 parts. One is the systematic literature review of the existing reports, publications, and articles from global forums and Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs). The second part is the interviews of 2 groups of participants. One group is policymakers including IGOs and government representatives. Another group is researchers on sustainable digitalization and green/sustainable software engineering. The findings show that global forums mainly promote the positive impacts of digital and software innovation. The acknowledgement of the negative impacts of these technologies is very low. Moreover, global forums have no focus or awareness of the software’s impact on climate change. Most participants agreed that global forums should include the topic of software’s impact on climate change for sustainable digital transition.