How can climate pledges capture digital impact?

Digital technologies have become a defining feature of national climate strategies, as countries integrate data systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and early-warning capabilities into their plans to meet 2035 climate targets.

Many countries submitted new climate pledges ahead of COP30, the United Nations climate conference in Belém, Brazil. These pledges, formally known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), outline each country’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and build climate resilience.

Most NDCs in the latest round set targets for 2035.

A newly released ITU stocktake brief explores the integration of digital technologies in NDCs with 2035 targets.

The analysis examines how countries aim to leverage digital technologies for climate action across other sectors, as well as capturing the impact of the digital sector itself.

Digital climate action

The stocktake brief reviews 53 NDCs submitted between 1 January and 29 September 2025, finding that nearly 90 per cent reference digital technologies. They span energy, agriculture, forestry, water management, transport, and disaster risk reduction, with countries seeking digital solutions to strengthen climate mitigation, adaptation, and loss-and-damage assessments.

Key examples include:

• Monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems enhancing the accuracy and transparency of GHG inventories.
• Digital decision-support tools strengthening climate planning and adaptive policy design.
• Early-warning systems, referenced by 34 countries, that can bolster preparedness and risk management for climate-related hazards.
• AI-enabled applications, noted in around 20 per cent of digital-referencing NDCs, used for climate modelling, forecasting, optimization, and land-use monitoring.

The digital visibility gap

Despite this momentum, the digital sector’s environmental footprint remains largely unaddressed in national climate commitments. The sector currently accounts for between 1.5 per cent and 4 per cent of global GHG emissions, driven by energy-intensive data centres, device manufacturing, and growing demand for AI-related processing.

But current national inventories, following a sectoral framework from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), distribute digital-related emissions across various other sectors, such as energy, industrial processes, agriculture and land use, and waste.

This makes digital impact hard to isolate, track and regulate. Only a few countries explicitly acknowledge the digital sector itself in their NDCs.

Without greater transparency, emissions may shift between sectors without declining overall, the ITU report warns. Stronger monitoring and consistent categories are needed to ensure that digitalization cuts more emissions than it creates.

Real-world examples

Several country cases demonstrate practical applications:

• Angola is expanding its early-warning capabilities through climate monitoring, enhanced meteorology and advanced forecasting models.
• Brazil links the digital and ecological transitions with satellite monitoring to curb deforestation, digital public infrastructure for sustainable land-use planning, and AI-driven climate innovation.
• The Republic of the Marshall Islands uses geospatial mapping, climate modelling, and digital community platforms to monitor rising sea levels, improve coastal climate resilience, and enhance transparency in climate finance.
• The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia applies predictive analytics and digital optimization across its energy and water systems to drive emissions reduction.

As these cases confirm, digital solutions paired with the right policies and sufficient investment can deliver measurable gains in the battle against climate change.

Recommendations

The stocktake brief recommends five key actions:

1. Advance from commitment to delivery: This means embedding digital ambitions into concrete implementation plans, governance, financing, safeguards, capacity-building, and monitoring frameworks.
2. Measure net impact: This means accounting for both emissions reduced through digital solutions and the sector’s own footprint, following standards like ITU standard L.1480: Enabling the Net Zero Transition.
3. Close technology transfer and financing gaps: This will require stronger cooperation between governments, industry, and partners to expand access to digital climate solutions and support skills development.
4. Explore a sector-specific approach: This would enhance the visibility of digital-related emissions, either within national inventories or through complementary national data systems.
5. Strengthen data disaggregation within IPCC sectors: This would involve assessing tech-related environmental impacts to sift out digital aspects within existing NDC sectors.

The Green Digital Action initiative by ITU with partners across the global tech industry aims to keep advancing climate-positive digitalization, encouraging countries and industry to improve measurement, transparency, and energy performance of digital systems.

Green Digital Action partners and the UNFCCC Technology Executive Committee continue the analysis, aiming to cover the full breadth of new NDCs with 2035 targets.

Check out the brief: Digital technologies in NDCs

Learn more about Green Digital Action

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