Intergenerational partnerships for just climate transition & digital future

Ensuring digital technology is a global public good and promoting just, equitable, and ethical innovations is crucial for addressing pressing global challenges. Maximizing efforts to protect the planet and people, tackling multiple, intersecting environmental crises such as climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification and pollution requires consideration of the complex interconnections between health and well-being, technological change, and socio-economic development. To accelerate action towards these goals, governance for emerging and disruptive technologies (e.g., AI) needs to be transformed and strengthened to ensure that intentionally and collectively working towards the realization of more equitable power dynamics and just futures.

This session convenes relevant actors to promote cooperation and partnerships in the design, regulation, development, deployment, and decommissioning of digital technologies and infrastructure to address global challenges, in particular climate justice and health justice and well-being, emphasizing the meaningful engagement, leadership and agency of youth. As catalysts for cultural, social, economic, and political change and innovation, young people need to be meaningfully engaged in policy discussions and development to safeguard their rights, to address risks and harms, and to offer their unique perspectives and experiences in utilizing technology to address global challenges. By including youth perspectives, this session will focus on their needs, interests, and priorities, in line with the principles of the Declaration on Future Generations.

The session is focused on facilitating intergenerational dialogue centralizing youth perspectives, needs, and concerns in the co-design and governance of digital technologies, including holding Big Tech companies to account. Young people are directly impacted by converging crises—climate change, global health inequities , political violence, and environmental degradation—yet they are often excluded from governance processes and mechanisms. Addressing these crises needs to consider the support, agency, rights, and aspirations of systematically marginalized communities, including its future generations. As such, we orient the critical topics of this session to discuss and share the most effective ways of supporting youth in this context and highlight the needs for non-tokenistic and transformative approaches to future decision and policy making, as well as community building. We will invite to this session young experts and leaders from youth advocacy groups. We seek to engage youth with diverse backgrounds, expertise, and experiences in co-designing this session and engage them as both presenters and discussants.

Host or Publisher United Nations University International Institute for Global Health