A new study from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) warns that the European Union’s efforts to pursue green and digital transitions simultaneously may be putting pressing environmental problems on the back burner. The research suggests the EU is using this ‘twin transition’ to gain a competitive edge in the digital market, rather than prioritizing crucial environmental issues.
The Clash of Logics
Based on the study, the green and digital renovations are carried out by completely different logics. The Green Transition is based on the ‘logic of limits’, which simply means that there are fewer things you are able to do because from this point further due to certain environmental considerations, it is no longer possible;
At the other end of the scale, technological innovation (and human experience) are spiralling towards infinity in a ‘logic of unlimited potential’ in which there is no problem that cannot be fixed. Such a twins transition is unlikely to work smoothly though, and well could provoke contradictions given the dualitarian positions.
The researchers suggest that the European Commission is mobilizing the twin transition as a ‘discursive resource’ in order to foster coherence and consensus amidst highly contentious and ungovernable political problems. This means policy is not driven by evidence anymore, but rather the urge to deliver rapid, tech-fix solutions.
Failing to prioritize Environmental Issues
As the study analyses from their extensive reading of EU policy documents at the highest level, critically important environmental problems — such as the loss of biodiversity, soil degradation and depletion of water resources, are being neglected in favour of issues that can be addressed with digital technologies.
The study highlights the example of the European Green Deal that commits to achieving climate-neutrality of the EU by 2050. While this is the ambitious plan which stands at the heart of Commission priorities, these two parallel objectives – the green and digital transitions – are not necessarily compatible.
Compound nature transformationSimilarities of this step were already mentioned in the transformations of refineries, as researchers warn that the EU with its “digital-a-thermal” grouping is again pushing two things wrong together to activate new markets and an antitrust so environmental governance dumbly serve the digital industry rather than environmental management. Fulminate against cost-push diskonthe low-hanging fruitingomedesire the strategy of lamp-posting, fixing what is easily fixable and ignoring those intractable environmental problems?
Conclusion
The study’s conclusions sound the alarm over the EU transition to green and digital. Instead, the transition to a digitalized society and economy risks simply bringing with it more of the “white man’s burden”, as wealthier, whiter countries continue exporting their emissions to poorer ones or externalizing pollution by decarbonizing the developed world without tackling overall production and consumption levels. According to the researchers, a more democratic approach is needed that acknowledges the complexity and trade-offs inherent in addressing environmental issues. This is the way that true environmental protection can be preserved and the goals of the Green New Deal and Europe achievable.
