IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 14

COMMENTARY

he following is a
Draft statement prepared from discussion held during the
CIFAR workshop
September 18-20, 2019, in Montreal,
Quebec, Canada. The workshop
was co-sponsored by CIFAR,* U.K.
Research and Innovation (UKRI),
and the French National Center for
Scientific Research (CNRS), and cohosted by Future Earth, The Observatory of Social Impacts on AI and
Digital Technology, the U.K. Office
for AI, and CNRS.

The Montreal
Statement on
Sustainability
in the Digital Age

Preamble
Two major forces are shaping the
future of human civilization: an--
thropogenic climate change and
the digital revolution. The changing
climate is driving systemic shifts
that threaten to destabilize the
health and wellbeing of human-
kind and the natural systems on
which they depend. Big data, digi-
tal platforms, and artificial intelli-
gence (AI) are rapidly transforming
society in ways that pose systemic
risks to the global social fabric. But
fortunately, AI and other digital
technologies also present systemic
opportunities for driving the largescale societal transformations
needed to build a climate-safe and
equitable world.
*Formerly

the Canadian Institute for Advanced

Research.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2020.2991494
Date of current version: 18 June 2020

Investors and strategists working
on the climate crisis are increas-
ingly turning to digital innovations
to increase efficiencies and reduce
emissions from high-emitting sec-
tors such as electricity, transport,
food, land, and industry. However,
little attention to date has fo--
cused on how AI and digital technologies are transforming the
underlying socio-economic systems that are keeping society on
a carbon-intensive and vulnerable
path, and the opportunities these
present for driving the large-scale
transformative changes needed
for decarbonization.
Recognizing the severity of the
risks and the magnitude of the
opportunity, we call for a global col-
laboration among business, civil
society, researchers, and innovators
to focus on leveraging AI and the
digital age to help build a sustain-
able and equitable world.
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

The objectives of this Collective
Statement are to:
1) Call on leaders tackling the cli-
mate crisis and those working
towards a just and equitable digi-
tal world to recognize that these
agendas are interconnected.
2) Define priority areas for guiding
digitally-enabled societal trans-
formations - building on the
strengths of all regions and
communities - to facilitate a
transition to a climate-safe and
equitable world.
3) Build an international network
of researchers, innovators, busi-
ness leaders, and policy makers
collectively working to leverage
the digital age to drive these so--
cietal transformations.

We Recognize That
To avoid the most dire consequenc-
es of the changing climate, we must
∕

JUNE 2020

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

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