You can register to the event here or watch the live stream below:
What's at Stake ?
The digital revolution is one of the most important drivers of economic and social change. It has given rise to powerful general-purpose technologies such as artificial intelligence or cloud computing of revolutionary scale and potential. Digital technologies are globally pervasive , increase productivity, disrupt pre existing business models and lead to diverse innovations with profound implications for the human future. Digitalisation has enormous potential to support progress towards sustainability however in its current form, it continues to enable and/or encourage unsustainable practices that are degrading natural systems, entrenching inequality and undermining human wellbeing.
How is the UN responding?
The Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability (CODES) was founded in March 2021 to address this nexus. CODES is an international multi-stakeholder alliance created in March 2021 in response to the UN Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation. The aim is to steer the use of digital technologies toward accelerating environmentally and socially sustainable development. CODES is striving to reorient and prioritize the application of digital technologies to meet the 2030 sustainable development agenda and to achieve the multiple global environmental goals that have been adopted as the outcomes of multilateral processes and years of consensus building across all UN Member States. For the last 12 months, the CODES community has been co-designing an Action Plan for a Sustainable Planet in the Digital Age as an international framework for collective action.
CODES Side Event at UNEA 5.2
CODES is organizing an official side event at the UN Environment Assembly 5.2 on 2 March to present the Action Plan for A Sustainable Planet in the Digital Age. The Action Plan calls for three fundamental shifts that are needed to harness digital technologies to accelerate planetary sustainability. These include:
- Shift 1 Enable Alignment: Create the enabling conditions to align the vision, values and objectives of the digital age with sustainable development;
- Shift 2 Mitigate Negative Impacts: A commitment to sustainable digitalisation that mitigates the negative environmental and social impacts of digital technologies;
- Shift 3 Accelerate Innovation: Directing efforts and investments toward digital innovation that accelerates environmental and social sustainability.
Within each shift, the Action Plan identifies six strategic priorities that must be addressed during the 2022-2025 timeline. The Side Event will include a Panel Discussion that will seek to answer two key questions:
- How can CODES deepen the level of stakeholder engagement and buy in to the Action Plan, with a specific focus on member states and UNEA stakeholders ?
- How can CODES catalyze specific commitments and leadership for the Impact Initiatives proposed by the Action Plan by relevant stakeholders in the leadup to Stockholm plus 50.
Who are the speakers ?
The following members of the CODES community will participate in the side event:
- ASG Maria-Francesca Spatolisano, Acting UN Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology
- Steffi Lemke, German Environment Minister
- Dirk Messner, President, German Environment Agency
- Eliane Ubalijoro, Executive Director of Sustainability in the Digital Age and the Global Hub Director in Canada for Future Earth
- Philip Thigo, Senior Advisor, Innovations and Open Government - Presidency - Kenya
- Rudradeb Mitra, Founder and CEO of Omdena
- Rose Mwebaza, Director at UN Climate Technology Centre and Network
- Severin Sindizera, Global Coordinator, Indigenous Peoples Global Forum for Sustainable Development (IPGFforSD)
- Canice James, ITU Generation Connect Americas Youth Envoy, CEO of NADIS
- Megha Sud, Science Officer International Science Council
There will also be an opportunity for responses to the panel from member states and other UNEA stakeholders.
Register here for the event.
For more information on CODES and on the Action Plan for a Sustainable Planet in the Digital Age, click here.
Organized by: German Environmental Agency (UBA) for the Coalition of Digital Environmental Sustainability (CODES); CODES co-champions: UBA, UNEP, UNDP, International Science Council, Future Earth, Kenyan Environmental Ministry.
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