Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and COP26 Private Finance Advisor to PM Johnson and the former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, states in his book “Value(s) Building a Better World for All”, 2021, “There are three technologies needed to solve the climate crisis. First, engineering, where recent progress has been exceptional. … Two other technologies are needed: political and financial.”
It is proposed to build a “Digital Technical Knowledge Commons” ‘housing all things technical’, especially technology-based solutions and best practices, relevant to climate change-related goals and sharing this accessible technical knowledge and expertise with decision-makers and stakeholders locally, regionally, and globally.
It is expected that extensive use of such a vibrant “Digital Technical Knowledge Commons” will aid significantly in decision-making processes and will lead to faster implementation of ‘change’.
Sustainable implementation of required changes in society and infrastructure will be needed fast and at a global scale to mitigate the most dangerous climate scenarios caused by global warming, while, at the same time, adaptation measures need to be taken. Wide-spread deployment of enabling technology will be critical. This requires engaging a great number of stakeholders around the globe on a local, regional, and global basis. Locally applicable, accessible, contextualized, and expertly vetted technical knowledge and solutions in a practically implementable and readily accessible manner will thus be key; supported by harmonized and aligned measures and coupled with engaging neutral expert technical bodies such as the IEEE, ISOC, and others. With this type and quality of accessible information and expertise – housed on the ‘Digital Technical Knowledge Commons’- the benefits to sustainable implementations should include improved technical designs, greater aligned outcomes to agreed-upon measures and accelerated levels of scale to be realized.
We recommend that the G7 endorse the proposed commons as means to, directly and indirectly, complement a number of existing and new initiatives with the opportunity to realize success at scale.
In the references section, a table describing synergistic areas between the T7 Policy Briefs provided, and this one is shared.
