Panel at CPDP.ai 2025: “Future Digital Infrastructures for Climate Change: A Solution That Brings Along Its Own Challenges?”

This panel investigates the digitalisation - climate action relationship and discusses the response of law and policy to it. Digitalisation is touted as the solution for environmental challenges. The EU policy considers digital infrastructures integral to achieve the European Green Deal’s net-zero goals ("twin transition"). But these create new risks and dependencies as they implicate power dynamics at the intersection of digital economy, geopolitics, security. This panel investigates some of these frictions focusing on two technologies: foundation models and digital twins. For example, foundation models can provide novel climate insights, but they can also transfer bias in context and training data into climate solutions and cement market logics into sustainability efforts. Digital Earth applications (e.g. DestinE), bringing together sensing and computing, can change environmental decision making processes and can have potential uses for disaster prevention, migration management and security. How could the law take account of these dynamics going forward?