IGF 2019 IRPC Meeting- Sustainable Futures II

Information

Session

DC:

Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles

Birds of a Feather - Auditorium - 90 Min

Theme:

Digital Inclusion

Subtheme:

Design for Inclusion
Emerging Technologies
Inclusive Governance

Description:

Internet Futures and the Climate Crisis - Paths to Sustainability or Extinction?

2019 marks the 30th anniversary of World Wide Web, a fundamental moment in the history of the Internet, and an integral part of our daily lives in this era of the Internet of Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. It is estimated that over 4 billion people are now internet users and 3.9 billion are active mobile internet users, which represents more than half of the global population. However, Internet connectivity comes at a price: despite the potential to reduce the environmental impact, the internet and its dependent technologies are in fact contributing to the current climate crisis, and with the global number of users rapidly increasing, the ICTs may soon overtake the carbon footprint of the aviation industry.

Can green Internet-dependent technologies offer smart solutions to tackle the climate crisis?

Discussions around sustainability and the environmental impact of ICTs have been largely absent from Internet Governance agendas, despite the current global climate crisis and the ever-growing energy demands of a fast-increasing digital industry.
As the UN SDGs look to connect the next billion the relationship between recognition of emerging rights such as that of internet access and existing rights (e.g. the right to information, education) and the environmental burden internet-dependent technologies requires our attention. Internet access as a sustainable development goal implies research into, and development of equipment, architectures, and services that are also environmentally sustainable in light of undertakings around the current climate crisis and the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs).
This session is a follow-up to meetings organised last year IGF in Paris and at this year’s EuroDIG in The Hague and part of our ongoing outreach work through the Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet.

Objectives of this session:

Accelerate the awareness of the digital environmental impacts among all the IGF stakeholders and put the environmental issue and its connection with the ICTs on the forefront of the main IG agendas;
Listen to and act upon the main concerns of the younger generations;
Address the major issues arising from the fast increase of energy consumption and carbon footprint of internet dependent technologies: production, consumption and e-waste; climate misinformation online and harassment of youth climate activists and identify the society impact and the human rights directly affected directly by the environmental hazards of internet dependent technologies (e.g. forced labour, climate migration);
Create a collective hub, bringing together all IGF participants to produce the creative solutions urgently needed to ensure that next generation of internet-dependent technologies provide technologically viable and sustainable responses to issues arising from global environmental degradation.

Policy Questions: Outcomes and Interventions
Questions that this meeting will address include, but are not restricted to:

Which human rights are directly affected by the environmental impact of internet-dependent technologies?
How can the digitalization and networking of the urban environment, such as digital/smart cities projects, take into account the principles, and practice of environmental sustainability and “human rights by design”?
How can global, and national internet policymaking agendas better respond to existing and future environmental issues arising from connecting the Sustainable Development Goals with those aiming to “Connect the next billion”?
In which specific areas - of public concern, geography, or internet design – can different stakeholders generate working relationships for sustainable, rights-based internet futures?

Organizers:

Minda Moreira, Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRPC)

Speakers:

Chris Adams - ClimateAction.tech, Tech community
Christopher Olk - Extinction Rebellion | International Labour Organization, Civil Society,
Conor Rigby - Feminist Internet, "Designing an Ecological Alexa" (remote) - Creative / tech community
Constanze Buerger - Federal Ministry of the Interior Germany, Government
Fridays for Future representatives (remote) - Civil Society / Youth Representation
Lea Rosa Holtfreter - Civil Society / Youth Representation

Breakout Session Facilitators / Rapporteurs

Chris Adams - ClimateAction.tech - Tech community
June Parris, Internet Rights and Principles Coalition (IRPC) and IGF Mag Member, Civil Society
Lea Rosa Holtfreter - Civil Society / Youth Representation
Nick Shorey, Cyber security and global Internet policy specialist, Private sector

Moderator: Minda Moreira, IRPC, Civil Society

Rapporteur: Marianne Franklin, IRPC, Goldsmiths University of London, Civil Society

Remote Moderator: Gustavo Souza, Youth Coalition on Internet Governance (YCIG), Civil Society

SDGs:

GOAL 1: No Poverty
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-Being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequalities
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
GOAL 12: Responsible Production and Consumption
GOAL 13: Climate Action
GOAL 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Reference Document: http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/

Report

1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations:

Internet Futures and the Climate Crisis - Paths to Sustainability or Extinction?

Which human rights are directly affected by the environmental impact of internet-dependent technologies?
How can the digitalization and networking of the urban environment take into account the principles, and practice of environmental sustainability and “human rights by design” and in which specific areas - of public concern, geography, or internet design – can different stakeholders generate working relationships for sustainable, rights-based internet futures?
How can global, and national internet policymaking agendas better respond to existing and future environmental issues arising from connecting the Sustainable Development Goals with those aiming to “Connect the next billion”?

2. Discussion Areas:

The meeting opened with an introduction to the work of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition and why the theme of this session - on the interrelationship between internet design, terms of access and use, data management and storage - is relevant to the IRPC Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the Internet and related projects from the coalition. Presentations from representatives of Futures for Fridays and the Feminist Internet Sustainable Alex project were followed by remarks from invited panelists; representatives from Extinction Rebellion, Youth IGF, and Climate Action Tech before the four break-out groups addressed four action point questions.

Group 1 - The Internet is killing the Planet! - How can we reduce the carbon footprint of internet-dependent technologies
Group 2- Sustainability by design: Creating rights-based and environmentally conscious technologies
Group 3 - Saving the Planet and Fighting the trolls: The rise of the young climate movement in an era of structured misinformation campaigns and online harassment
Group 4 - The human cost of the Climate Crisis: How to ensure sustainable human development through the Internet and protection of rights and empowerment of climate “migrants” in the online environment

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward:

There were differing positions on whether these issues are existential - as is the view of Extinction Rebellion members, or issues best approached through self-regulation.

Suggestions for the way forward are as follows:

1) Priority to be given to seeing this issue mainstreamed in internet governance agendas, and multistakeholder consultations at the UN level, regionally, and nationally.

2) That the climate crisis, as a planetary and local issue that affects the Global South most profoundly and urgently, requires cooperation and projects to develop synergy across all sectors to raise awareness of environmental issues as integral to internet governance.

3) That it be recognized that the climate crisis and international agreements to reduce carbon emissions as one way to mitigate its symptoms is a core issue for internet governance; in its technical, socio-economic, cultural, and political dimensions

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues:

There was clear support in the meeting for the need to see this topic on internet governance agendas, and multistakeholder consultations at the UN level, regionally, and nationally along the following lines.

1) That the current climate crisis is integral to the full spectrum of internet governance decision-making from designers, service providers, and regulators.

2) The dependence on fossil fuels, related carbon footprints of online services and mobile phone/cloud services needs urgent addressing from the design perspective and business models of large platform uses.

3) Internet goods and services and their hardware, equipment specifications need to address any unintentional harms to the physical environment at all points of computing and internet-dependent devices' timelines.

4) Accountability for environmental degradation, pollution, and dependence on non-renewable energy sources need to be also part of internet business and government policy agendas.

Support was also given to cooperation and projects to develop synergy across all sectors to raise awareness of environmental issues as integral to internet governance.

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues:

As noted above, the issue of how internet governance impacts on the earth's physical environment - land, sea, and atmosphere, was put forward as an urgent issue for all stakeholders in the internet governance domain. How progress can be made at this stage was to have this point recognized and then to work with a range of stakeholders to support and inform about sustainable approaches to future decision-making that regard enviromental sustaibability-by-design.

6. Estimated Participation:

159 participants registered. 100 attended the presentations and about 50 took part in the break-out groups.

7. Reflection to Gender Issues:

This session was marked by 1) the youth participation and leadership and 2) the even number of female and male participants. A large number from the Global South were also active in the groups and summing up discussion.

8. Session Outputs:

Session Outputs based on the groups' feedback to the workshop are as follows:

Group 1 - The Internet is killing the Planet! - How can we reduce the carbon footprint of internet-dependent technologies
Issues: Manufacturing, Consumption, E-waste.

Action plan needed to identify business models of tech firms that lead to increased data consumption e.g. moves to streaming that capture so much data have environmental impact
Address the issues of raw materials as sources for hardware
Address the short life-span of products and contribution to e-waste
Incentive needed for software and systems developers nto think in energy-efficient terms at the design stage.
In broader terms, up-stream, need holistic view of environmental impace of whole internet ecosystem
- Carbon tax could compel better uses of energy as would rewards for developing goods and services in energy-sustainable way
- GDPR requirements could include those around energy consumption
- Include calculations as Edge Devices are also very energy hungry
- A need for responsible and conscious investors.
Need to remember the disproportionate impact that some of these, well-intentioned policies might have on Global South so cross-party and inter-regional cooperation crucial

Group 2- Sustainability by design: Creating rights-based and environmentally conscious technologies
Issues: Design, Emerging technologies, Sustainability

Need to recognize organizations that are already taking on board environmental implications e.g. Vodafone and dot.everyone that scans the environmental costs of internet goods and services.
Need to develop a database that can track these issues e.g. Wiki-Rate
Need to coordinate knowledge exchange around unintended consequences e.g. impact of processing and data-storage for cryptocurruncies and dependence on fossil fuels
Ways to be found to reward good behaviours e.g. carbon credits
Governmental role important in all the above
Groups such as Climatechange.AI need support as part of developing coherent ways to compare how companies are doing with respect to climate issues.

Group 3 - Saving the Planet and Fighting the trolls: The rise of the young climate movement in an era of structured misinformation campaigns and online harassment
Issues: Youth Activism vs online climate misinformation

Group exchanged experiences with online harassment at intersection of climate activism and other forms of sexism and racism; e.g. trolling on Twitter, and an experience from a Webinar on Climate Change that had to field aggressive trolling
Recommdning ways for service providers to develope ways to tackle these sorts of behaviours
Issues of countries, e.g. situation in Brazil and survival of the rainforest, where oil companies and government agencies appear to be participating in disinformation campaigns that include racist discourses about indigenous peoples
Any responses from advocacy community need to be calm and referenced to generate factual ways as responses to such attacks
In schools and universitities need to improve education and curricula addressing digital literacy to deal with false information online
Called for more funding to enable research on harassment of climate activists and find out if perpetrators are individuals or organized campaigns.

Group 4 - The human cost of the Climate Crisis: How to ensure sustainable human development through the Internet and protection of rights and empowerment of climate “migrants” in the online environment

Issues: digital inclusion, development through the Internet, climate “migrants” rights to access and protection in the online environment

Case in point is the Maldives as an example of how whole countries are going under water
Urgent action needed to address how increasing demand for internet leads to more demand for energy, leading to global warming and that leads to climate migration/refugee
One suggestion was to get rid of Amazon given its carbon and energy use
Need to exchange ideas and practices between sectors, and regions.
Group noted the environmental effects on marine life through building islands and ongoing dependence in some threatened areas on the tourism industry i.e. policies needed to encourage Eco-Tourism
Awareness-raising programs also needed to inform local people about climate change particularly in parts of the world very dependent on tourism such as water sports, diving, and activities that kill reefs
Museums can also include more exhibitions on climate issues
Agreed that more technology not solution so need to consider the notion of de-growth and move to tech-recycling to counter e-waste
Whilst technological tools and programs are needed for many projects they need to be better monitored for any knock-on impacts to the environment

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