Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 10) – Nick Hughes OBE on “The Power of Micro-Transactions”
This is the tenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Nick Hughes argues that “we must use technology to create new economic wealth by either helping someone make money or save money: market-creating innovation“. He then provides insights into how he thinks this can happen, suggesting that “The next phase of development will see digital payments linked to real-time economic output data. The use-cases are multiple, with the following being just a few: clean energy from distributed solar; earnings from tiny retail outlets unlocking working capital; and the lock-up of carbon into biochar rewarding buyers and sellers in the carbon markets”
All audio files relating to the book are also available on our podcast with a new episode every week.
Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 9) – Emily Hickson’s contribution to “Nigel Hickson: a digital life well lived for others”
This is the ninth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. Our dear friend and colleague, Nigel Hickson was to have written one of these vignettes based on his wealth of experience working on Internet Governance, especially for the British Government and ICANN, but his untimely death meant that he was unable to complete it. Instead, some of his friends have contributed very short pieces on what it was that made him so special, and a model to follow for anyone wishing to work at the policy level to ensure that the poorest and most marginalised can benefit from the use of digital tech. The full vignette can be read here.
All audio files relating to the book are also available on our podcast with a new episode every week.
Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 8) – Judith Hellerstein’s contribution to “Nigel Hickson: a digital life well lived for others”
This is the eighth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. Our dear friend and colleague, Nigel Hickson was to have written one of these vignettes based on his wealth of experience working on Internet Governance, especially for the British Government and ICANN, but his untimely death meant that he was unable to complete it. Instead, some of his friends have contributed very short pieces on what it was that made him so special, and a model to follow for anyone wishing to work at the policy level to ensure that the poorest and most marginalised can benefit from the use of digital tech. The full vignette can be read here.
All audio files relating to the book are also available on our podcast with a new episode every week.
Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 7) – G. ‘Hari’ Harindranath – How May Academics Help to Empower Marginalised Communities Through Digital Tech?
This is the seventh episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Hari argues that “Empowering marginalised groups through our work with digital technologies, and striving to make the world a better place as a result may be lofty aspirations, but they are worth pursuing. That will require us all to get out of our comfort zones and find ways to prioritise outcomes, commit time and resources, and engage with communities on the ground, rather than in the ivory towers, to learn and gather evidence of impact and outcomes of using digital tech in the service of the world’s poorest and most marginalised”
The full vignette can be read in English here and all audio files relating to the book are also available on our podcast.
I am so very grateful to Tom Wambeke and the team at the Innovation Lab at the ITCILO (International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation) who hosted a pre-launch event for my upcoming book, Digitial Inclusion in an Unequal World: an Emancipatory Manifesto on their magnificent campus in Turin on 1st December. It was a very special event – I have to admit to having been even more nervous than usual beforehand – and I was very humbled by the contributions of Tom himself, Ugo Vallauri, Ed Canela, Juan Carlos de Martin (Nexa Centre for Internet and Society, Polytechnic of Turin), and Fabio Nascimbeni (European Training Foundation), who were all most generous in their reflections. A copy of my presentation focusing on the UN and Innovation is available here.
Ugo VallauriFabio NascimbeniJuan Carlos de MartinEd Canela
It was also very special to have been inducted as the fifth person in the Innovation Lab’s Hall of Fame, for which I had to come up with a quotation that summarised my work. I’m most grateful to Tom and the team for this, and especially to the designer and graphic artist who put the plaque together!
The ITCILO campus is a very special place, on the southern outskirts of Turin, and it has a magical calm about it. What a great place for representatives of governments, private sector companies and labour organisations to come together to discuss important issues about the future of work! I happened to be there at the same time as their 2025 Winter Forum on Demographic Transitions: Understanding the Impact of Demographic Transitions on the World of Work, and I am so grateful to Rute Mendes for inviting me to contribute a short keynote in her session on 4th December. I spoke on “Reflections on digital tech and the demographic transition“, and my short presentation is available here.
Thanks again to everyone at the ITCILO who made this such a special visit to Turin.
Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 4) – Pari Esfandiari’s contribution to “Nigel Hickson: a digital life well lived for others”
This is the fourth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. Our dear friend and colleague, Nigel Hickson was to have written one of these vignettes based on his wealth of experience working on Internet Governance, especially for the British Government and ICANN, but his untimely death meant that he was unable to complete it. Instead, some of his friends have contributed very short pieces on what it was that made him so special, and a model to follow for anyone wishing to work at the policy level to ensure that the poorest and most marginalised can benefit from the use of digital tech. The full vignette can be read here.
Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 5) – Domenico Fiormonte on “The Geopolitics of Digital Knowledge”.
This is the fifth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Domenico asks the important question “So who has the power today to ‘represent’ digitally the world’s languages, the core of human cultures?”. He answers: “It is a group of Western, predominantly English-speaking and U.S.-based corporations”. However, he concludes optimistically that “the real Web is becoming multilingual and multicultural, regardless of all its hegemonic and mainstream representations”
Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 6) – Mei Lin Fung on “Learning from Land Rights so Data Rights are Right from the Get Go”.
This is the sixth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Mei Lin Fung suggests that “The painful history of poorly defined land rights, which in the past led to displacement through lack of formal documentation, offers a crucial lesson for the digital age”. She concludes optimistically that “We still have time to shape the digital future so that it reflects the dignity of everyone it touches — and ensures meaningful participation for anyone, anywhere”
The full vignette can be read in English here, and it can also be watched on video here.
Tendani Mulanga Chimboza on the exploitation of young women: digital tech at the heart of the immoral economy
This is the first episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Tendani highlights how digital tech is being used to exploit young women in southern Africa. The vignette can also be read here.
Marine Al Dahdah on The Digital Privatisation of India’s Administration
This is the second episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Marine focuses critically on aspects of the digital privatisation of India’s administrative systems. The vignette can also be read here.
Ken Banks on Memories of Innovation for the Most Marginalised
This is the third episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Ken focuses perceptively on the reasons why so many digital initiative notionally intended to help the poor often fail to do so. As he says “I worked for 15 years trying to give a voice to, and support, the work of grassroots organisations through digital tech, butmy frustration in a wider development system that didn’t seem to want to do what they knew was best for those they were meant to serve eventually forced me to step away”. The full vignette can be read here.
Many of the authors have contributed audio recordings of their vignettes. These are available here, but are also being shared on a regular basis through the ICT4D blog and podcast over the next six months. Do follow the ICT4D Collective on Apple Podcasts to listen to these inspiring examples of how digital tech can be used constructively by some of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people, but also the reasons why most such initiatives fail sufficiently to serve their interests.
The book can be pre-ordered from Routledge using the link above, and for those who respond quickly there is a 20% reduction if you order before 23rd October 2025.
Are you or your organisation thinking of endorsing the Global Digital Compact (GDC)? Has your organisation already endorsed it? If so, please think again, and make a valuable political statement by not endorsing it. Endorsing it gives validity to a flawed process and a deeply problematic document. If it only receives a few endorsements those behind it cannot claim legitimacy, despite it having been agreed by governments participating in the UN Secretary General’s Summit of the Future. Those behind the GDC state that it is a “roadmap for global digital cooperation to harness the immense potential of digital technology and close digital divides”. Put simply, as it is currently structured it cannot deliver on this (for some of the reasons why see Reflections on the Global Digital Compact, Why “we” (the people of the world) need to reject the Global Digital Compact, and Scientism, multistakeholderism and the Global Digital Compact). The endorsement process “calls on all stakeholders to engage in realizing an open, safe and secure digital future for all”. As it is currently worded, it will never deliver this.
Choosing not to endorse the GDC is a positive action that will save a huge amount of unnecessary time and effort – and thus money – that could better be spent on delivering effective digital futures in the interests of the many rather than the few. Here are six things to think about before you make a decision:
Have you read it all? You cannot endorse the document unless you agree with it. I also wonder how many people in the 106 organisations that have already signed it have actually read the full document, and do indeed agree with its content? If you do not agree with all of it, how can you endorse it?
Does the UN Secretariat have the capacity (both quantitatively and qualitatively) to manage the envisaged GDC process. Despite the planned dramatic expansion of the Office of the Tech Envoy, do you think there is capacity within the UN Secretariat to manage all of the endorsements and engage you actively in future processes and activities? Anyone who is aware of the time and effort that have already been spent by UN agencies in delivering previous global digital initiatives (and processes such as WSIS and the IGF) will know how complex and difficult this is. Do you have faith that the UN Secretariat can effectively deliver the required management of the GDC process? What indeed will this involve?
Whose interests does the GDC really serve? Is it anything more than a vanity project for a few leaders within the UN Secretariat, and the powerful interests that they serve? Will it really deliver benefits in the interests of the world’s poorest and most marginalised? If you do not think so, you should not endorse it.
Is your organisation merely signing it for appearance’s sake? Are you afraid that you might miss out on an opportunity? Is it just a chance to rebrand what you are already doing, and be seen to be supporting a “global” initiative that has the UN label behind it?
Are you endorsing it primarily in your own interests? Are you doing this in the hope that there could be possible future advantages for your own organisation in doing so? Are you really committed to doing things differently so that digital technology can indeed be used by everyone in their own interests? That means everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Are you really going to change fundamentally what you are doing so that you work in the interests of those without power, without a voice, who are being enslaved by those driving the future of digital tech?
How can you endorse the GDC if you do not yet know exactly what this means in terms of your future commitments? Apparently endorsing the GDC merely means that you endorse its vision and principles. Do you really endorse all of them? If not, can you endorse it? The endorsement protocol also states that “Organisations and associations can specify action areas where they are involved in and/or interested in contributing, regardless of whether they have endorsed the Compact”. Yet, this does not say what is meant by “contributing”. What do you really want to contribute, and how will you do so?
Please think twice before endorsing the GDC. Do you really think that it provides a sufficiently rigorous or comprehensive framework for crafting a future for the design and use of digital tech that will serve the interests of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people and communities. If you care deeply about these issues, can you really endorse it?
Crafting the next chapter of my new book about digital tech and development, I found myself writing about poverty again, and remembered a paper On the richness of Africa that I wrote back in 2008. It was never accepted by the journals I submtted it to for publication, but on re-reading it I think that much of what I wrote then is even more pertinent today (the editors clearly thought otherwise, and that I was too far way from the accepted orthodoxy then, and probably still am!). Interestingly, though, I found that “pirate copies” seem to be available on AI generated sites, so someone must have found it interesting!
Given this, I just thought that I would make it available officially once more here. The abstract reads as follows:
ABSTRACT: This paper argues that there needs to be a shift in the balance of understandings of Africa from being a continent dominated by poverty to one that is instead conceptualised as being ‘rich’. It begins with an overview of arguments that seek to portray Africa as being poor, and then examines the interests that donors, African governments, the private sector, civil society and consultants all have in propagating such an image. In contrast, it then illustrates how Africa can instead be seen as being rich in terms of its mineral wealth, agricultural potential, culture, social and political institutions, and physical environment. It concludes by arguing that development initiatives that continue to seek to eliminate poverty in Africa will remain doomed to failure unless they refocus their attention on building upon the continent’s existing riches.
Hoping that others (than the digital pirates) might find it still of interest!
Much of my research and teaching earlier in my career was related to wine, but from the late 1990s the realisation that, while wine can do much to make us happy, being directly involved in the enormous changes taking place as a result of the design, production and use of digital technologies was something that could actually make the world a better place. I greatly value the opportunities that I have had over the last 25 years to engage directly in that field, but as I increasingly realise that digital tech is now beng used to do more harm than good, I value even more the opportunities that I have had to re-engage more actively with wine. I am therefore especially grateful to have been asked at the start of this decade to serve as the UK and Ireland Academy Chair for the World’s Best Vineyards Awards, initiated by William Reed Ltd. Each year, more than 500 panellists from across the world vote for their favourite wine tourism experiences, and these are then collated into lists of the top 50, and the next 51-100 award winners. Although selecting the UK and Ireland panel, and ensuring that all panellists do indeed vote is very much more diffficult and exhausting than you would imagine, the team at William Reed has brought together an amazing group of people associated with the awards, and alongside the award winners we have become a wonderful group of friends, committed to enhancing the visibility and success of wine tourism, which makes all the effort worthwhile. This owes much to Andrew Reed’s (MD Wine and Exhibitions) personal charm, hard work and commitment to perfection, as well as the enthusiasm of the team he has brought together to make the awards the success that they have become.
Each year, the awards ceremony is held in a different part of the world: the Rheingau and Rheinhessen in 2021, Mendoza in 2022, and Rioja in 2023. In 2024 it was the turn of England to host the awards ceremony, and this provided an excellent opportunity for participants to experience the transformations that have taken place in English wine production over the last two decades. The awards ceremony itself was generously hosted by Nyetimber, in its magnificent Medieval Barn, with Eric Heerema (Owner and Chief Executive), Cherie Spriggs (Head Winemaker) and Zoë Dearsley (Brand Ambassador) providing an overview of the property and the wines before the awards were announced. Hopefully the images below capture something of the pleasure and excitement of the event.
The introductions
The Awards ceremony
As Chair of the UK-Ireland panel, it was great to see two of our vineyards and wineries in the top 100 awards: Gusbourne and Nyetimber. Both are to be congratulated for their achievements in this very tough competition.
Pre-awards visit to Tinwood Wine Estate
Before the awards ceremony, all Academy Chairs had been invited to an estate visit and delicious lunch and wine tasting at Tinwood Estate, hosted by Art and Jody:
An exploration of the best of south-east England’s wineries and vineyards
After the awards ceremony, it was an enormous pleasure to take four of the Academy Chairs (Chiara Giorleo – Chair for Italy; Lotte Karolina Gabrovits – Chair for Germany, Benelux and Nordic; Pál Gabrovits – Chair for Austria, Hungary and Switzerland; and Pedro Nelson Dias – Chair for Portugal) on an exploration of some of the best wineries and vineyards in Surrey, Sussex and Kent. We are all immensely grateful to the proprietors and staff of these estates for their hospitality and the time they spent with us. Glimpses of our experiences (in the order that we visited them) are shared below to encourage you to visit these estates and get to know some of the excellent wines that are currently being produced in south-east England.
“…families and businesses continue to pay the price for Britain’s energy insecurity. Bills remain hundreds of pounds higher than before the energy crisis began and are expected to rise again soon. At the same time, we are confronted by the climate crisis all around us, not a future threat but a present reality, and there is an unmet demand for good jobs and economic opportunities all across Britain” “Backed by a capitalisation of £8.3 billion of new money over this Parliament, Great British Energy will work closely with industry, local authorities, communities and other public sector organisations to help accelerate Britain’s pathway to energy independence”…” Great British Energy will create thousands of good jobs, with good wages, across the country. We will seize the opportunities of the clean energy transition and ensure the British people capture those benefits”
The new UK government’s recent announcement about renewable energy will please many people, especially the business community who will benefit from government subsidies and easing of regulation, urban dwellers who will be able to continue their energy-extravagant lifestyles at the expense of Britain’s rural heritage, and the jingoists who believe that Britain really is “Great”. However, it is based on a deeply flawed understanding of the causes of climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions,[i] as well as a flawed approach to valuing the rural environment.
In addressing these issues, I must first acknowledge my own rural “peasant” biases. My early research in the 1970s and 1980s was about the evolution of the medieval rural landscape in England, and at the same I was also undertaking research on the contemporary lives of people living in rural areas in some of the poorest parts of Asia and Europe. I was honoured to serve as the elected Secretary General of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape for a decade between 1990 and 2000. These interests have never left me, and over the last 50 years I have come to have a deep love for, interest in, and understanding of the importance of rural landscapes as one of the richest parts of Britain’s heritage. I also know a world where the only heating in my house was from a back boiler, which also had to be on if I wanted any hot water. In winter, I vividly recall the water in the glass by my bed freezing at night. We wore layers of warm clothing in winter, and enjoyed the heat of summer, long before central heating and air conditioning[ii] became widespread.[iii]
This critique focuses primarily on three of the main issues that arise from the government’s recent announcements: lower cost electricity generation; renewable impact (both production and distribution); and the business model that serves the interests of the few rich rather than the many poor.
Energy supply and demand: why lower cost energy will increase the environmental impact
The idea that lowering energy costs through the use of renewable energy will be good for the people and good for the environment is deeply problematic. It appears to be grounded in the mis-placed belief that carbon emissions and their impact on climate change are perhaps the biggest challenge facing humanity, and that in our country we can address this through a heavily subsidised energy system that will enable us to be energy independent at a lower cost than we are paying at the moment. As Ed Miliband wrote on 25 July 2024, “That is why making Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030 is one of the Prime Minister’s 5 missions with the biggest investment in home-grown clean energy in British history.”[iv]
The problem is that lowering energy costs is almost certain to increase energy consumption in the long term, and it is energy consumption that is the real problem, not the blend of energy that we choose to supply. It is often argued that energy is an inelastic good, and that demand and supply are not responsive to price.[v] In part, this is because there are no close substitutes for “energy” as a whole, although differential costs for alternative fuel types mean that choices of specific fuels (including renewables) will indeed change depending on price.
There are, though, at least two problems with such an argument. First, one of the largest drivers of energy demand, and thus carbon emissions globally, is actually demographic growth (see my An environmentally harmful alliance of growth mantras).[vi] Historically, population growth in the UK has also been one of the main factors increasing energy demand, although the restructuring of our economy since the 1970s “from energy intensive industries, such as cement and steel, to services-based industries such as finance and consulting” has actually led to a substantial decrease in overall energy consumption.[vii] This decline in industrial consumption has masked domestic patterns of consumption. Moreover, recent evidence suggests that the impact of increased pricing mainly as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has also actually had an impact on reducing existing demand (along with warmer weather) to levels not seen since the 1950s.[viii] This brings into question just how inelastic energy pricing really is. It seems highly likely that reducing prices as a result of the proposed government investment in renewables will actually lead to a resurgence in domestic consumption, which is something that will have negative impacts on the environment. Second, though, demand is also heavily influenced by what societies deem to be appropriate lifestyle choices. Being profligate with energy has been a core characteristic of British lifestyles for at least half a century when energy has been relatively cheap. We don’t actually need to heat and cool our homes and offices as much as we do. If price pressures encouraged us to reduce our domestic energy consumption, then this could only be a good thing nationally for the environment – although energy providing companies would undoubtedly bemoan the reduction because they flourish on increasing markets.
It would be much more sustainable to focus more on implementing effective strategies to reduce overall energy demand instead of increasing lower cost provision of renewable energy, especially when its environmental harms are fully appreciated. To be sure, there will remain those for whom energy costs will still be too high (so-called “fuel poverty”), but it is relatively easy to resolve this through appropriate financial subsidies or tax benefits for the financially poorest in our society, rather than funding businesses to produce more cheap renewable energy.
The environmental impact of the production and distribution of renewable energy.
One core element of the new government’s plan is to change the planning procedures to make it easier for renewable energy projects, notably wind farms and solar panels to be constructed on the land of the British Isles.[ix] As Mullane (2024) has commented, “Under the old policy any local community opposition could block the development of onshore wind farms, but this is no longer the case. The revised policy places onshore wind on the same footing as other energy developments under the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This means onshore wind applications will now be processed in the same way as other renewable energy projects.”[x] Moreover, if large windfarms are indeed designated as nationally significant infrastructure projects this would mean that the Secretary of State, Ed Miliband, would sign off on them, and local councils and citizens would not have a say in the decision.[xi] For such decisions to be made, though, the Secretary of State would need to prove that the benefits of an onshore windfarm or similar energy project were greater than the costs, and among these costs has to be the environmental impact that they have. Our present systems of judging such impact, though, are woebegone, and fail to take satisfactory recognition of the real cost of destroying the historic landscapes that lie at the heart of our culture.[xii] The required environmental impact analyses are indeed quite detailed, but they fail sufficiently to address fundamental questions about the nature of the landscape, especially when windfarm turbines can be seen from a very long distance away. Traditionally, many such processes have been based on some kind of “willingness to pay” approach, where costs are estimated based on how much people would be willing to pay extra not to have something, such as a windfarm, in their neighbourhood. Unfortunately, people living in such areas are often poor, and the amounts they are willing to pay are readily overwhelmed by the financial and political alliances of companies and governments.[xiii] The basic problem, though, is that we don’t have a robust system for judging the impact of these initiatives, and it would seem to be essential that we do put an acceptable process in place before mega-onshore-windfarms are created that will change the landscape forever. Will, for example, detailed archaeological surveys be required before these schemes are put in place?
It is not only the environmental impact of windfarms and solar panels that requires attention but also the infrastructure necessary to transmit the electricity to where it is used. There is a robust ongoing debate about the impact of pylons, with campaigners arguing that they should not be built, and cables instead put underground at a cost that would in most instances not make such projects feasible.[xiv] Ultimately, the decisions that will be made will be political ones, and it seems likely at present that the new government will override such objections, claiming that they are nothing more than nimbyism.[xv] The use of new designs of pylons in the shape of a T might go some way to reduce the eyesore of these infrastructure projects,[xvi] but other more radical solutions also need to be found. One option, for example, would be to build entire new communities around such installations, so that there would be no need for pylons to transport electricity to current centres of high demand. Thinking more radically, it would make sense for heavy industrial uses of electricity to be relocated to parts of the world where few people live and there are excellent sun or wind resources that could be tapped to power them.[xvii] British companies could invest in industrial production in the Sahara for example, although this would not necessarily resolve the geo-political desire for self-sufficiency in energy.
A related challenge is that the areas of highest absolute demand for energy in the UK are often not where there is greatest potential for renewable production, especially for wind, hydro, and tidal. Over the last 35 years, transport (c.38% in 2022) has consumed the largest share of energy, followed by domestic (c.27% in 2022), industry (c.18% in 2022) and services (c. 17% in 2022).[xviii] These activities tend to be concentrated in and around urban areas, and accessing energy from places where it tends to be produced often therefore becomes yet another example of the “urban” exploiting and extracting a surplus from the “rural”.[xix] To be sure, wealthier people with larger houses tend to consume more energy per household, and often live in rural or suburban areas, but such impressions are misleading when interpreting total energy consumption across all sectors. Maps of energy consumption per unit of area in different parts of the UK are difficult to find, since most data are disaggregated on a per household basis. This in itself further disadvantages low population density, rural areas, because it gives the impression that they also have high total consumption levels, which is usually not the case.[xx] The voices of the relative few rural people who live in areas which are likely to be dominated by renewable energy production for the urban masses and the rich, need to be heard as representatives of the heritage landscapes that cannot speak for themselves.
The business interests behind renewable energy
An important part of the government’s case for expanding renewable energy production is that it will contribute to UK economic growth, employment, and expertise that will enable British companies to have a competitive advantage abroad – so that Britain can be truly great again. That is why Miliband makes the jingoistic claims that ““making Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030 is one of the Prime Minister’s 5 missions with the biggest investment in home-grown clean energy in British history”.[xxi] That is why the Labour Party talks and writes about how they will “Make Britain a clean energy superpower”.[xxii]
This development will only happen if the government spends billions of pounds of taxpayer’s hard-earned money on subsidising companies to develop these technologies and build the infrastructure to provide electricity where it is wanted. The price of renewable energy without government subsidy would be unaffordable by most people, and few companies would invest in the renewable sector without such subsidies and guarantees. The government has announced that it will spend £8.3 billion new money over the life of this parliament in capitalising Great British Energy, a publicly owned company, to “work closely with industry, local authorities, communities and other public sector organisations to help accelerate Britain’s pathway to energy independence”.[xxiii] Interestingly, it does not mention citizens or comrades in this list of those it will work with, let alone “for”. Companies have sold the government a dream that renewable energy will save the world from climate change and make Britain great again. This is primarily in their interests, not ultimately in the interests of the majority of British citizens. Moreover, the very real environmental harms caused by such massive roll-out of these technologies are either ignored or vastly under-estimated.
The growing power of the renewable energy sector is well-illustrated by their reaction to the new government’s apparently ambitious new subsidies. As The Guardian has recently reports: “Labour’s clean energy targets may already be in jeopardy just weeks after the party came to power with the promise to quadruple Britain’s offshore wind power, according to senior industry executives…The offshore wind industry has said there will not be enough time to develop the projects needed to create a net zero electricity system by the end of the decade unless ministers increase the ambition and funding of the government’s upcoming “make or break” subsidy auctions”.[xxiv] Ironically, many environmentalists, coming from a very different position to that of most companies, have also criticised the government for not going far enough. As the co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsey, has said “We need real change if we are to meet the demands of the climate crisis. These Labour plans do not deliver it…Compared to Labour’s original commitment to spend £28bn a year on green investment, this announcement of just £8.3bn over the course of the parliament looks tiny and is nowhere near enough to deliver Labour’s promise of ‘clean electricity’”.[xxv]
There is much to be applauded about the government’s aspirations, but some of the propaganda such as that noted below from the Labour Party seems to be over-ambitious – it is certainly surprising to see the claim that this will make us secure from “foreign dictators”.
Britain needs Great British Energy A new publicly owned, clean power company for Britain. Britain already has public ownership of energy – just by foreign governments. Taxpayers abroad profit more from our energy than we do. It is time to take back control of our energy. A first step of a Labour government will be to set up a new publicly owned champion, Great British Energy, to give us real energy security from foreign dictators. Great British Energy will be owned by the British people, built by the British people and benefit the British people. It will be headquartered in Scotland, invest in clean energy across our country, and make the UK a world leader in floating offshore wind, nuclear power, and hydrogen.
The British people need to recognise that there will be a very significant impact on our precious rural landscapes from these new government policies. The scale of this is largely unacknowledged and unappreciated. Human impact on nature – our physical environment – has reached crisis point, and this is an issue very much bigger than merely climate change and the reduction of carbon emissions. The new government policies, although possibly being well-intentioned, will not solve the crisis for the British people, but are in danger of making it worse.
This article has merely touched on three of the main issues surrounding the new government’s renewable energy policy, and in conclusion offers three suggestions for practical ways forward:
First, we should focus much more on reducing demand for energy, rather than on supply issues. Population growth and energy-extravagant lifestyles are the real underlying reasons why we have an energy crisis. We need to make fundamental changes to our lifestyles that respect nature rather than consume it through our selfish individualistic greed and ambition.
Second, we need to have a fundamental overhaul of our approaches to environmental impact assessment relating to renewable energy intiatives, that is much more holistic and places greater value on respect for nature and our cultural heritage embedded in rural landscapes. We cannot allow a Secretary of State to over-ride citizen opinion by imposing large infrastructure projects in areas of significant environmental value.[xxvi]
Third, whilst energy security is an important concern of government, and it is indeed the private sector that is currently the main engine of the economy, governments need to prioritise the interests of all their citizens, and especially the poorest, helpless and most marginalised. The proposed policies seem to serve the interests of global capital more than they do those of the majority of citizens in the UK. It is the interests of the business sector that are now driving renewable energy development, and these insufficiently address the holistic impact of their technologies on nature.[xxvii] We therefore need to provide much more training to those in private and public sector renewable energy companies about the holistic character of environmental impact, including the importance of cultural heritage in relevant decision making processes.
This is an important moment for British society, and a change in government always provides an opportunity for the introduction of beneficial new policies and practices. The government’s intention to address energy security and the environmental impact of energy production is to be applauded, but, and it’s a big but, these proposals seem likely to do more harm than good. Many people might feel better off as a result in the short-term, but the long-term environmental impacts of these proposals are likely to result in irretrievable harm to the British natural and cultural environment. It may be that people in government and large swathes of our society, many of whom live modern urban and suburban lifestyles, do not really care. I am sure that I am in a minority, but when our children’s children grow up in a world divorced from lived reality in nature, they will not only have broken the link with their past cultural heritage, but they will have no way of reclaiming it physically. It will become merely a virtual memory, and it will be too late to retrieve that important element of being truly human that is encapsulated in our rural landscapes. The labour of countless rural “peasants” that is encapsulated and represented in these landscapes will be obliterated and made inaccessible for ever from our lived experience because of our modern, technology-driven ignorance and greed.
[ii] Air conditioning in 2023 was estimated to represent about 20% of total electricity use worldwide, and 10% of use in the UK, but total usage is likely to increase in the future (Khosravi, F., Lowes, R, Ugalde-Loo, C.E. (2023) Cooling is hotting up in the UK, Energy Policy, 174, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113456.)
[xxvi] It can be noted that “unspoilt” rural landscape in the UK is becoming scarcer and scarcer – and thus more precious. While this is in large part because of increasing population and affluence, it is also morally wrong that urban elites (as well as the urban and the elites generally) should impose their personal prejudices and biases that will harm rural landscapes that they do not understand or value. Moreover, significant destruction of the physical environment is also likely negatively to impact tourism revenue as cherished landscapes are changed by the construction of windfarms and mega-solar installations. The CLA estimates that “Rural tourism accounts for 70-80% of all domestic UK tourism and adds £14.56bn to England and Wales’ Gross Value Added” (CLA, supporting rural tourism in England, 21 March 2024, https://www.cla.org.uk/news/supporting-rural-tourism-in-england/).
[xxvii] Many people working for companies in the sector do so because of their commitment to environmental well-being, but often those trained as engineers and scientists do not have a sufficient understanding of the physical and cultural environment impacted by their technologies.
Recent AI global summit in Geneva: the glitz and glamour of digital tech
The Internet and World Wide Web have been used to bring many benefits across the world, but they have also been used to cause very significant harms. To deny this, is to fall into the trap of scientism, science’s belief in itself. Science is not neutral and value free as many scientists would have us believe. Above all, scientific enquiry and innovation are not inherently “good”, however that is defined. Moreover, science is not necessarily the best or only way of making truth claims about our existence on planet earth.
The recent “Open Letter to the United Nations” by a distinguished group of 37 scientists, notably including Vint Cerf (described in the letter as Internet Pioneer) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (described as Inventor of the World Wide Web), raises very important issues around the nature of digital technologies and the so-called multistakeholder model. In essence, it seeks to persuade those involved in the Global Digital Compact “to ensure that proposals for digital governance remain consistent with the enormously successful multistakeholder Internet governance practice that has brought us the Internet of today”.
While I profoundly disagree with the agenda and process of the Global Digital Compact, I do so from the other end of the spectrum to the arguments put forward in their Open Letter. I have three fundamental objections to their proposal: that they largely ignore their responsibility for the harms; that their interpretation of multistakeholderism as being bottom up is flawed; and that, in effect, they represent the corporate interests that have for long sought to subvert the UN system in their own interests.
Science and innovation are not necessarily good
The Internet and World Wide Web were originally invented by scientists (“engineers” as they are referred to in the Open Letter), who were caught up in the excitement of what they were doing. As many of their subsequent statements have suggested, I’m sure these engineers believed that they were doing good. Thus, as the letter goes on to state, the success of those involved in the subsequent development of the Internet and the Web “can be measured by where the Internet is today and what it has achieved: global communication has flourished, bringing education, entertainment, information, connectivity and commerce to most of the world’s population”. While they acknowledge later in their letter that there are indeed harms resulting from the use of the the Internet and Web, they say little about the causes of these harms , nor about the structures of power in their design and propagation. By claiming that the basic architecture of the Internet must not be changed, because it is empowering, they fail sufficiently to take into consideration the possibility that it was their original design of that architecture that was flawed and enabled the rise of the very many harms associated with it.
There is nothing inherently “good” about science; it serves particular sets of interests. Scientists are therefore as responsible for the harms, unintended or deliberate, caused by their inventions as they are for any “good” for which they are used. The letter claims that the technical architecture of the Internet and Web cannot on its own address the harms it is used to cause, but offers no evidence in suport of this argument. If the Internet and Web had not been created as they were, if the architecture had been different, might not the harmful outcomes have been avoided? Did the engineers and others involved take the time to consider the full implications of what they were doing? Did they consider the views of philosophers and social scientists who have studied the diffusion of innovations and their potential harms in the past? Or were they caught up in the technical interests of positivist science? I do not know the answer to these questions, but I do know that they are as responsible for the scale of the harms caused through the use of their inventions, as they are for any good.
On multistalkeholderism
The arguments of the Open Letter are based on the notion that multistakeholder processes have been “enormously successful” in bringing us “the Internet of today”, and that the Global Digital Compact should not damage these by replacing it with “a multilateral process between states”. Accordingly, the authors should also recognise that it is these same multistakeholder processes that have also brought us the harms associated with the Internet and Web. Moreover, the claim that this multistakeholder model of Internet governance is “bottom-up, collaborative and inclusive” is also deeply problematic. Just over a decade ago, I wrote a critique of multistakeholderism (see also my Reclaiming ICT4D) in which I highlighted that despite such aspirations and the efforts of those involved to try to achieve them, the reality is very different. Those arguments apply as much today as they did when I first wrote them. In essence, I argued that there are two fundamental problems in the practice of multistakeholderism: unequal representation, and the decision making process. I challenge the claim that in practice these processes are indeed bottom-up, collaborative and inclusive. The following are just some examples in support of my case:
The world’s poorest and most marginalised people and communities do not participate directly in these gatherings.
how many people with disabilities or ethnic minorities actually contribute directly?
Most of the organisations claiming to represent such minorities sadly usually have their own interests more at heart than they do of those they claim to speak for.
There is a very significant power imbalance between those individuals, organisations and states who can afford to participate in these deliberations and those who do not have the financial resources or time to contribute.
Small Island states are notable in their absence from many of these processes, simply because of the cost and time involved in such participation.
The large, rich global corporations can afford to engage and lobby for their interests, whereas the poorest and most marginalised face almost impossible difficulties in seeking to compete with them.
There are enormous linguistic and cultural barriers to full and active engagement.
This applies as much to the technical language and processes used in these deliberations as it does to the dominance of a few interrnational languages in the discussions.
The processes of consensus decision making are extremely complex, and require considerable experience of participation before people can have the confidence to contribute.
Almost by definition, minority voices are unlikely to be heard in such processes of reaching a consensus.
I could highlight many more examples of these challenges from my 25 years of experience in attending international “multistakeholder” gatherings, from the Digital Opportunities Task Force (DOT Force), to the regular cycle of subsequent WSIS, IGF, ICANN, and UN agency gatherings. This is not to deny that many such multistakeholder gatherings do indeed try to support an inclusive approach, but it is to claim that the reality is very different to the aspiration. The image below from the GDC’s page on its consultation process suggests where the power really lies.
It is surely no coincidence that the third of these sub-headings focuses on the $5tn+ represented by the market cap of private sector companies. This need not have been so. They could instead have given a clear breakdown of the exact numbers of submissions from different types of organisation.
The corporate interests underlying the UN digital system and the Global Digital Compact
It is somewhat ironic that this Open Letter is written by “scientists” who in reality largely represent or serve the interests of the digital tech companies, in an effort to roll back what they see as the growing interests of governments represented in the GDC drafts. In stark contrast, I see the entire GDC process as already having been over-influenced by private sector companies (see my 2023 critique of the GDC process). In theory, states should serve the interests of all their citizens, and should rightly be the sector that determines global policy on such issues. It is right that regulation should serve the interests of the many rather than the few.
Here I just briefly focus on three aspects of these challenges: the notion that the Internet is a public good or global commons that serves the interests of all the world’s people; the private sector representation of the scientific community; and the undermining of UN priorities and agendas by the private sector in their own interests. Before I do so, though, I must emphasise that there are many individual scientists who do seek to serve the interests of the poor rather than the rich, and a few of these do also have considerable knowledge and understanding of ethics and philosophy more generally. I also acknowledge the problem of what to do about disfunctional and self-seeking governments.
The Internet as public good
The arguments that the Internet and Web are public (or for some “common”) goods that should be kept free so that everyone can benefit, and at its extreme that access to the Internet should be considered a human right, are fundamentally flawed. People do not benefit equally from such goods (these arguments go back to Aristotle, and can in part be seen in Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons). Those who benefit the most are the rich and powerful who have the finance, knowledge and ability to do so. This is why digital tech has become such a driver for increased global inequality at all scales. Those who are creating the contemporary digital system are doing so largely in the interests of global capital (for much more detail see my arguments in my Reclaiming ICT4D, Power hierarchies and digital oppression: towards a revolutionary practice of human freedom, and Freedom, enslavement and the digital barons: a thought experiment).
An unhealthy relationship between science and private sector companies
Not all science and innovation are funded or inspired by the interests of private sector corporations, but it is increasingly becoming so, especially in the digital tech sector. Not all scientists or engineers fail to consider the possible unintended consequences of their research and innovation, but many do. All of us have choices to make, and one of those is over whether we seek to serve the interests of the world’s poorest and most marginalised, or the interests of the rich and powerful. Moreover, it is important to recognise that historically it has usually been the rich and powerful who have used technology to serve and reinforce their own interests. There is a strong relationship between power and science (see my The Place of Geography, and Reclaiming ICT4D, both of which draw heavily on Habermas’s Critical Theory, especially Erkenntnis und Interesse). Scientists cannot hide behind their claim that science is neutral or value free.
These challenges are especially problematic in the digital tech sector. Thus, leadership and membership of entities such as the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and the W3C (Board of Directors) are all heavily dominated by representatives from private sector companies and computer scientists with close links to such companies. It is just such people who have signed the Open Letter.
The private sector subverting the UN system in its own interests
It is entirely apropriate that there should be close dialogues between governments and private sector companies. Likewise, it is important for there to be dialogue between UN agencies and companies. Indeed, international organisations such as the ITU and the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation have facilitated such engagements between companies and governments since their origins, to ensure that informed decisions and agreements are reached about telecommunications and digital tech policy and practice across the world. However, despite the neo-liberal hegemony that aspires to roll back the role of government, it is still governments that wield the political power – rightly so.
Constructive criticisms of the Global Digital Compact are always welcome. There is, though, a strange irony that representatives of the very interests that played such a strong role in shaping the GDC should now be criticising the way it has developed. My earlier strident criticisms of the GDC were in part that it already reflected too much private sector interest, and that it would do little in practice to mitigate the very considerable harms and digital enslavement caused through the design and use of digital tech (see my Use it or lose it – our freedom). Perhaps I should therefore be grateful that computer scientists and corporate interests are so critical of the draft. This raises some important questions that could be explored in much further detail:
Could the architecture of the Internet and Web have been designed differently so as to ensure that it was not used to cause the harms and abuses that are so prevalent today? My hunch is that the answer to this is “yes”, but that it would have been much more difficult, and would have required very considerable more work and thought about its design at that early stage.
Are those who designed and created the Internet and Web responsible for these harms? Again my answer to this is “yes”, but I appreciate that not everyone will accept this. In origin, the earliest engineers and computer scientists working in this field were focused primarily on the “science” of these innovative technologies. I have never asked them the extent to which they considered the ethics of what they were doing at that time, or how much they examined the potential unintended consequences. However, almost all these “scientists” were the products of an education system and “scientific community” that was grounded in empirical-analytic science and logical positivism (see my critique in The Place of Geography). Moreover, these scientific communities were always closely engaged with private sector companies (and indeed with the USAn military-industrial complex). There is little doubt that the evolution of the Internet and Web over the last 20 years has been driven primarily by the interests of private sector companies, and they too must be brought to justice with respect to the damage they cause. As for the signatories of this Open Letter, if they claim to be responsible for its positive aspects, then they should also accept that they are responsible for its more reprehensible features.
What do we do now about it? This is the really important question, and one that is too complex for those involved in the Gobal Digital Compact to resolve. At best, the GDC can perhaps be seen as a statement of intent by those with interests in promulgating it. It can be ignored or kicked into the long grass. It is impossible to reach a sensible conclusion to these discussions in time for the so-called Summit of the Future in three months’ time. In the meanwhile, all of us who are interested in the evolution of digital technologies in the interests of the world’s poorest and most marginalised must continue to work tirelessely truly to serve their interests. One way we can do this is to work closely with those from diametrically opposed views to try to convict them of their responsibility to craft a fairer, less malevolent digital infrastructure. The geni is out of the box, but it is surely not beyond the realms of human ability to tame and control it. The “scientists” behind the Internet need to step up to their responsibilities to humanity, and start playing a new tune. Some are indeed doing just this, but we need many more to step up to the mark. The so called “bottom up, collaborative and inclusive model of Internet governance” has notwell “served the world for the past half century”. It has served some incredibly well, but has largely ignored the interests of the poorest and most marginalised, and has done immeasurable harm to many others. Governments have a fundamental role in helping scientists and companies to make a constructive difference through approproiate regulation and legislation. Whether or not they will choose to do so is another matter entirely.
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