Project description
A closer look at the interrelationship between climate change and IT
There is a link between economic growth and carbon emissions. Considering that world GDP is growing, breaking this link will be crucial to achieving climate goals. Decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions is the answer. How to do it is the question. Some see IT and technologies playing a big role. But not everyone agrees. Against this background, the EU-funded DecouplingIT project will study how sociocultural change is generated in the spaces between IT, climate change and capitalism. Specifically, it will shed light on how IT professionals and enterprises articulate climate change as a problem in demand of IT-generated change. While both climate change and IT are manifested in globally diverse ways, their interrelationship must be studied.
Objective
Climate change is one of the biggest existential issues of our time, and there is little global agreement on how to deal with it. Governments and private sector industries argue that ‘decoupling’ economic growth from carbon emissions is the best way to reduce climate impact while still maintaining a healthy economy. Yet, how to do so remains an unsolved question. Most proponents of decoupling see IT as playing a central role, whereas critics argue that IT itself is entangled with incessant capitalist growth and has a large and often unacknowledged climate impact. In addition, IT solutions frequently have the side-effect of creating new and unforeseen problems – social or climatic. The challenge of decoupling is thus broader than the management of the relationship between the economy and the climate. As much as decoupling is about how we imagine the climate crisis can be solved with technologies, trusting that they can create the changes we need, it is also about the cultural value of lifestyles that we do not want to change. The DecouplingIT Project thus approaches decoupling as a matter of how sociocultural change is generated in the spaces between IT, climate change and capitalism. We study these spaces through ethnographic explorations of how IT professionals and enterprises articulate climate change as a problem in demand of IT-generated change, and in particular how they practically deploy IT with the climate in mind. While both climate change and IT are manifested in globally diverse ways, their interrelationship must be studied comparatively with attention to how particular conditions in different locations give rise to disparate responses. Consequently, we conduct research in distinct but conceptually connected ‘climate-IT-hubs’ each facing climate change in their own ways. This addresses a major theoretical gap in qualitative social science research, namely how global change is driven through the intersecting roles of IT, climate change and capitalism.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-COG
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2300 Kobenhavn
Denmark
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