Research Summary
A growing amount of data is available to help us monitor and coordinate climate action and renewable energy. But tech companies are starting to use green data capitalism to profit from collecting and managing environmental and energy data. As Canada Research Chair in Media, Culture, and the Environment, Dr. Anne Pasek aims to better understand what green data capitalism is and does.
She and her research team are analyzing how information technologies and firms are positioning themselves as both leaders in and benefactors of climate action. They are examining the paradoxes of climate gains and harms—as well as the intra-class conflicts and alliances emerging between information and communication technologies and fossil fuel industries. Ultimately, their work will illuminate how digital technologies shape—and are shaped by—the politics of climate action, revealing who benefits, who bears the costs, and how more equitable climate futures might be built.