The European Commission shall establish lines of interaction between the green transition programmes and the digital transition programmes in order to maximise results and optimise timing. The lines of intervention are contained in the 2022 strategic forecast report "Matching of green and digital transitions in a new geopolitical context", which identify ten key policy areas for achieving the 2050 targets and were adopted recently by the Commission, with the aim of accelerating both transitions.
The report takes into account the role of new and emerging technologies and the main geopolitical, social, economic and regulatory factors that affect their combination, that is, their ability to reinforce each other.
Energy, transport, industry, construction and agriculture (the five biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the EU) are key to effectively matching the green and digital transition. Technologies will play a key role in reducing the carbon footprint of these sectors. In fact, if until 2030 most of the CO2 emission reductions will come from technologies available today, then later it will be the new technologies currently in the experimental, demonstrative or prototype phase to enable the achievement of climate neutrality and circularity by 2050.
The report shall identify areas that require a strategic response to maximise opportunities and minimise potential risks arising from matching:
- strengthening resilience and open strategic autonomy in key areas for the dual transition, for example through the work of the EU Observatory of Critical Technologies or the Common Agricultural Policy to ensure food security;
- intensifying green and digital diplomacy, exploiting the EU’s regulatory and standardising power while promoting Union values and partnerships;
- strategically managing the provision of critical raw materials, adopting a long-term systemic approach to avoid a new dependency trap;
- consolidating economic and social cohesion, for example by strengthening social protection and the welfare state, ensuring that regional development strategies and investment also play an important role;
- adapting education and training systems to a rapidly changing technological and socio-economic reality and supporting labour mobility in all sectors;
- mobilising further investments adapted to future needs in new technologies and infrastructure - in particular in research and innovation and in the synergies between human capital and technology - with key transnational projects to pool EU resources, national and private;
- developing the monitoring frameworks to measure well-being, including taking into account elements other than GDP, and assess the opportunities offered by digitisation, but also its overall carbon, energy and environmental footprint;
- ensuring a regulatory framework adapted to the future needs of the single market, fostering sustainable business and consumption models, for example by constantly reducing administrative burdens, updating State aid policy instruments or applying artificial intelligence to policy-making and citizen participation;
- strengthening the global approach to standardisation and capitalise on the advantage of the EU’s pioneering role in the field of competitive sustainability, focusing on the principle of "reducing, repairing, re-using and recycling";
- promote a robust cybersecurity framework and secure data sharing to ensure, inter alia, that critical actors can prevent, resist and overcome disruptions, ultimately strengthening, confidence in technologies linked to the dual transition.