Events facts
Side event: The key role of digital technologies in enhanced climate action and SDG achievement
7th Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals
4 May 12:00pm New York/18:00 CET
Register here (this link takes you to the registration for the whole forum on the Whova platform, where you will then have access to enter all side events)
The COVID-19 pandemic has fast-tracked the shift toward a digital economy. We are now better able to harness rapid technological changes to enhance action toward achieving climate change goals and SDGs. Digital technology is a cross-cutting tool for use in several sectors to enable decarbonization, including the renewable energy transition, transformation of food systems, and maintenance of biodiversity. Digital technologies will increasingly enable us to solve challenging problems and improve smallholder access to information.
In this event, we discuss and showcase digitization that enhances progress toward SDG 13 on climate action in developing countries and contributes to several SDGs, including SDG 5, 15, and 17. Technologies such as UAVs and sensor-based irrigation can bolster food security, diversify livelihoods, and reverse gender inequality. Blockchain can be applied in both climate mitigation and adaptation for climate finance mobilization, facilitation of access to data, and development of digital infrastructure for climate markets.
The event will first provide an overview of digitization’s contribution to the SDGs and its utility as a cross-cutting tool in the fight against climate change, and highlight examples of support provided for the most vulnerable countries by the UN Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) portfolio of technical assistance. The event will exhibit ways in which the CTCN and its implementing partners are improving capacity for applying these technologies. A discussion is envisioned regarding the further potential for scale-up of digital technologies to enable broader transformational change.
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Moderator: Rose Mwebaza (Director, UN Climate Technology Centre and Network)
Claire Henly, Special Assistant to the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry
Erwin Rose, United States Department of State and CTCN Advisory Board Vice Chair
Jürg Füssler, INFRAS, Climate Ledger Initiative (CLI)
Denis Macharia, RCMRD, CTCN Technical Assistance on UAVs in Eswatini
Anouk Chamayou, Weatherforce, CTCN Technical Assistance on agrometeorological tools in Mali