While governments around the world are beginning to address the need for democratic governance of our digital systems, climate remains largely siloed from public and policy debates about digital technology. Many of the most polluting technologies, including so-called “Green AI” are offered back to us as “sustainable” tech solutions to the climate crisis.
Policymakers around the world are struggling to assess the environmental costs of digital technology without meaningful transparency and accountability mechanisms for greenwashing, climate obstruction and disinformation that continue to impede climate action around the world. While the market concentration of “Big Tech” has come under mounting public and state scrutiny, the same handful of companies are quietly extending their monopoly over land, water, and other natural resources.
Moderated by Deputy Director, Sonja Solomun, this event aims to bring tech researchers, digital policy experts, Indigenous scholars and civil society advocates to discuss the intersection of environmental and digital policy, the need for justice-oriented policy frameworks, and what the digital rights and climate justice movements can learn from each other more broadly.
About the Speakers
Michael Khoo, Climate Disinformation Co-chair at Friends of the Earth & Co-CEO, UpShiftStrategies
Michael has 30+ years experience developing communications campaigns on progressive issues. He has focused on a diversity of issues including climate change, tech platform disinformation, LGBTQ and transhealth rights, plastics pollution and petrochemicals, and fossil fuel financial regulation. At Friends of the Earth, Michael developed its climate disinformation campaign in 2018, and has since built a 35+ organization coalition to advocate for technology policy to rein in big tech, and for transparency and content reforms for social media companies. He has published research on the intersection of climate denial and QAnon, documented the spread of climate disinformation on Twitter and Facebook, and written about transparency policies for social media companies.
His work to help the social media company Pinterest develop a climate disinformation policy was cited by President Obama as “a good example about how social media companies can respond to disinformation when they want to”Before co-founding UpShift, he was executive vice president at Spitfire Strategies where he built the company’s digital division and coordinated the 2014-2015 national Net Neutrality campaign, a large-scale coalition campaign that overcame the entrenched Washington telecommunications industry. Michael was vice president for communications at the reproductive health rights group PAI from 2009-2012 and served as the organization’s interim co-director in 2010.
Previously, he worked as a vice president at Fenton Communications, Washington representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists,and campaigner for Greenpeace Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation.
Originally from Canada and of Malaysian & British descent, Michael lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, son and extremely timid 90 lb dog Lulu.
Anne Pasek, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Media, Culture, and the Environment at Trent University
Anne Pasek is an Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Media, Culture, and the Environment at Trent University, cross-appointed between the Cultural Studies Department and Trent School of the Environment. Her research explores the cultural politics of climate change, with a particular emphasis on the social and technical means through which carbon is enumerated and mobilized within diverse social formations, including climate denialism, the tech sector, and the arts. She is also the director of the Low-Carbon Research Methods Group, a network of scholars examining the climate and equity impacts of decarbonizing academic work, and the Experimental Methods & Media Lab, a hub for research-creation and critical making at Trent with a particular focus on emerging climate tech. She is a Co-PI and Energy & Climate Lead of the Sustainable Subsea Networks project funded by the Internet Society Foundation.
Ta'Kaiya Blaney, Activist, actor & singer-songwriter
Ta'Kaiya Blaney is from the Tla'Amin First Nation and grew up along the shores of the Salish Sea in British Columbia, Canada. She began her activism at the age of 10, when she took aim at the oil company Enbridge with her song and music video "Shallow Waters." When she was 13, Ta'Kaiya became the youngest person ever to have intervened at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She urged the Forum to create an Indigenous Children's Fund to "ensure the survival and well-being of we, the Indigenous children and youth, now and for the generations to come." She has spoken at United Nations conferences, environmental events, and in classrooms across Canada and internationally.
Ta'Kaiya is also an award-winning actress, having appeared in numerous short films, music videos, and animated shows; in 2018, she won a Leo Award for Best Lead Performance by a Female for her portrayal of the protagonist Ella in the critically-acclaimed film Kayak to Klemtu. Ta'Kaiya uses her many talents to complement her activism as she travels across Canada and around the world to effect change as a youth ambassador who believes that the recognition of Indigenous rights is vital to the health of the planet.
Carlos R.S. Milani, Full Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Rio de Janeiro State University’s Institute for Social and Political Studies (IESP-UERJ)
Carlos R.S. Milani is Full Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Rio de Janeiro State University’s Institute for Social and Political Studies (IESP-UERJ). He is the current director of the Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change (http://obsinterclima.eco.br/en/home-english/). He is also a research fellow with the Brazilian National Science Council, the Rio de Janeiro Research State Foundation, and the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI). His research agenda includes comparative foreign policy, international development cooperation, and climate change politics. His latest books are Cooperación internacional al desarrollo: entre solidaridad e interés (2023, in Spanish by El Colegio de México), Atlas of Brazilian Defence Policy (2017, in Portuguese) and Atlas of Brazilian Foreign Policy (2016, in English). His latest articles, course syllabi and research projects are available at www.carlosmilani.com.br.
Joycelyn Longdon, Founder of ClimateInColour and PhD student at University of Cambridge
Jovcelyn Longdon is a Cambridge University PhD student and environmental activist-academic. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining machine learning, ecoacoustics, forest ecology & local ecological knowledge.
She is the Founder of ClimateInColour, an online education platform and community for the climate curious. Its purpose, to make climate conversation more accessible and diverse, has garnered a community of 30K+ conscious and curious individuals. The platform is a launchpad for critical conversations, with Joycelyn often infusing a much needed element of hope and easily digestible information to the climate and environment space.
She has collaborated with a wide range of organisations including Meta (previously Facebook), Estée Lauder, Samsung and Greenpeace. Joycelyn has written for award-winning media company gal-dem as their climate columnist and is a regular climate contributor on the Skv News Daily Climate Show.
Nisreen Elsaim, Chair of the UN Secretary General Youth Advisory on Climate Change
Nisreen Elsaim is an environmental and climate activist who began activism in 2012. Nisreen has a Bachelor's degree in physics and a Master's degree in renewable energy, both from the University of Khartoum, Sudan. She is the General Coordinator for Youth and Environment - Sudan (YES), which is platform that gives all youth environmental activists the network they need.
Nisreen is also the Chair of Sudan Youth Organization on Climate Change (SYOCC). Nisreen leads and mentors large number of young people with in YOUNGO, PACJA, Abu Dhabi youth Voices, and others across a variety of regional and global platforms. She is a junior negotiator with the African Group of Negotiators in the field of technology transfer, focusing on country policies that concern climate change and renewable energies.
Nisreen is a published author, having written several policy papers on climate change, renewable energy, gender and youth empowerment. In 2020, Nisreen was chosen to Chair the UN Secretary General Youth Advisory on Climate Change. She is also a member of the inaugural cohort of the Marianne Initiative for Human Rights Defenders, launched by French President Emmanuel Macron.