Environment and the digital economy trade agenda How do these two spheres fit together?

23 August 2023

How can the digital trade agenda impact the environment?

Environment and the digital economy trade agenda: How do these two spheres fit together? (PDF, 204.83 KB)
Average time to read: 10 minutes
Medio ambiente y la agenda comercial de economía digital ¿cómo maridan estas dos esferas? (PDF, 146.77 KB)
Average time to read: 10 minutes

Publication type: Paper

Authors

Sofia Scasserra

Introduction

Digitality crosses our paths in an increasingly connected world. And as the digital economy has expanded, devoid of rules and wrapped in a halo of comfort and satisfaction, the problems caused by the lack of regulation have increasingly become apparent. Issues such as racial and gender bias, discrimination, excessive power, lack of privacy, and extractivism, make it harder and harder to dispute that a form of governance for the digital world is necessary. Such governance would merely begin to put order in a deregulated world, to maximize the benefits, which are many, and to mitigate the negative effects, which are also not few.

The environmental agenda has become necessary and urgent for the world. A change of direction is urgently needed, and cannot be avoided, if we are to mitigate the consequences of climate change, excessive extractivism, and the extinction of flora and fauna species, among other effects.

In this sense, just as the gender agenda must permeate all decisions, the environmental issue must also be present in all discussions that take place in society.

When it comes to the digital economy, two governance models are currently being negotiated: on the one hand, the United Nations Global Digital Compact seeks a kind of adherence to basic principles to regulate or bring order to the digital sphere, until such time as states regulate internally or regionally. On the other hand, the trade rules in the WTO and other bilateral and plurilateral treaties seek to regulate the digital economy in a binding way guided purely by business profit motive.

In this article, we ask ourselves, "How can the digital trade agenda impact the environment?”