Digital Decarbonisation Plans in Taiwan, Japan and Australia

Date: Wednesday 9 April, 2025

Time: 4:00pm – 5:00pm

Location: Lecture Theatre 250, Level 2, Wilkinson Building

Strategies and policies to pursue net zero transition in different countries are crucial to decarbonise the planet’s climate future. An emerging trend in these policies and actions has been to leverage digital technologies and high computing power, such as AI, for more effective results. Despite the shared goal, there are considerable discrepancies in national decarbonisation goals and in how technological, climatic, cultural and economic conditions are taken into account when drawing digital decarbonisation plans. Furthermore, a crucial aspect of net zero transition is concerned with justice and the goal and process of addressing justice issues when digital technologies are involved can be articulated and implemented in different societal contexts. The purpose of this talk is to explore the different visions and plans of digital decarbonisation using Japan, Taiwan and Australia as examples and demonstrate how digital decarbonisation and just transition are conceived and pursued in these countries. The three cases together illustrate the entanglements between technology, climate and society and the importance of addressing them when envisioning and planning digital decarbonisation pathways.

Speaker Bio

Sung-Yuen Perng is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Science, Technology and Society, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. He contributes to national and international journals in various editorial capacities, including Big Data & Society (co-editor), East Asia Science, Technology and Society (executive editor) and the Taiwanese Journal for Studies of Science, Technology and Medicine (editor-in-chief). He is the holder of Academia Sinica and National Science and Technology Council young researcher awards/grants. His research draws on Science and Technology Studies, Geography and Sociology to examine emerging digital technology and its wider societal implications. In his recent projects, he has explored the infrastructural and historical making of AI cities in Taipei and Yokohama and reconsidered the positions of East Asia in producing digital futures. His current collaborative project with Sophia Maalsen (School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney) seeks to understand how algorithmic capabilities have been appropriated in climate and decarbonisation actions and what social, ethical and political issues emerge in this process.