The accelerating pace of digitalisation - driven by artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce, cloud computing, and cryptocurrencies - has significantly increased the global demand for data centres. While these facilities underpin the digital economy, their rapid expansion has created substantial challenges in energy consumption and sustainability. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that data centres accounted for approximately 1–2% of global electricity use in 2022, excluding the additional energy required for associated infrastructure. With the continuing proliferation of AI-driven applications, this trend is expected to intensify dramatically, raising critical concerns regarding carbon emissions, energy security, and the broader environmental impact of digital transformation. As nearly 90% of global data centres are located within G20 countries, the group holds a pivotal position in addressing these challenges. However, considerable disparities exist in the distribution of data centres between and within the members of the group. The United States alone accounts for approximately 46% of global data centres while China follows with ten times fewer facilities. Such concentration amplifies energy consumption pressures and risks deepening global digital and economic inequalities. This policy brief examines the relationship between digitalisation and energy use through the lens of data centre distribution within the G20. It highlights the uneven concentration of data infrastructure and energy demand, revealing significant imbalances in data power and resource allocation. The brief concludes with policy recommendations for fostering climate- and resource-efficient digitalisation, enabling G20 members to align data-driven growth with global sustainability and net-zero objectives.
In Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan province, women move cautiously through public spaces under the watch of the Taliban’s “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” whose patrols have revived a climate of fear and control. Credit: Learning Together.
By External Source
FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Nov 6 2025 (IPS)
The Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, is the name given by the Taliban to their religious police, tasked with enforcing strict Islamist rule on the people of Afghanistan. But for Afghan women, the name evokes only fear and terror, as they bear the harshest consequences of its actions.
Women and girls know too well that venturing intro streets risks artitrary arrest, humiliation, and even torture. The mere mention of the religious police makes them tremble and, fearing for their lives, try to hide wherever they can.
The story of Fahima in the city of Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan province, show how easily women can become victims of this brutality.
Fahima was on her way to her aunt’s home to give Eid greetings and check in on her. On the way, she ran into her aunt’s young son who she casually greeted him, and as courtesy to a known relative, stopped for a brief chat. They had barely exchanged a few words when a white vehicle belonging to the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, pulled up beside them. Inside were armed men with fierce expressions.
They jumped out of the vehicle, shouting insults and threats, and demanded to know Fahima’s relationship with the young man. She told them he was her cousin. Nevertheless, the armed Taliban, seized both of them and forced them into the vehicle before speeding away.
I was there and saw it happen, I later located Fahima’s family after the incident and asked what happened to her. Badakhshan is a small province and people talk about many things that easily upset the mind.
Fahima was detained from noon until eleven at night. Her father went to the station and managed to convince the Taliban of the true relationship between the cousins, and she was eventually released.
The ordeal left Fahima deeply traumatized. She struggles to sleep, wakes trembling with fear, and refuses to leave the house under any circumstance, not even to seek medical help.
Fahima’s case is far from unique. During Eid, dozens of girls and women in Badakhshan faced threats, insults, and beatings from Taliban gunmen patroling the roads. Such incidents are a grim routine for Afghan women, whether it is Eid or an ordinary day.
Women in Afghanistan do not have the right to go to entertainment venues, women do not have the right to go to parks, women do not have the right to go shopping for clothes alone, and they must be accompanied by a male family member. Women do not have the right to study and get an education, and women do not even have the right to go to a male doctor for treatment.
Since the Taliban regained power in August 2021, they have issued at least 118 decrees imposing restrictions on women, dictating how they dress, banning them from employment, education in specialized and technical fields, and even presence in the media.
The increasing pressures and restrictions have led many women in Afghanistan to experience various mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, and psychological issues. Moreover, despair, poverty, and unemployment among women have contributed to a disproportionate rise in the suicide rate compared to previous times.
The Taliban do not admit it stems from their brutal attacks on women, and there are no official statistics available. But when people gather at weddings or funeral occasions, these issues very often come up in discussions. There is always someone who knows someone else, who has either had mental breakdown, or whose behavior has worryingly changed, or has been subjected to violence.
These pressures have had severe impact on the morale of women, many of whom live in challenging conditions at home. Under these circumstances, any attempt by women to protest these restrictions is always met with serious threats, of imprisonment, sexual assault in prison, and, in extreme cases, women can lose their life for protesting. Afghan women have lost even the ability to speak out or demand their rights.
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The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasonsBrazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the Opening of the General Plenary of Leaders during the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 30. Credit: Antonio Scorza/COP30
By Cecilia Russell
BELÉM, Brazil & JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Nov 6 2025 (IPS)
Political courage is the biggest obstacle to limiting the rise in global average temperature to no more than 1.5°C, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
“The obstacle is political courage. Too many promises are stalling. Too many corporations are making record profits from climate devastation. Too many leaders remain captive to fossil fuel interests, rather than protecting the public interest,” Guterres said at the opening plenary of the COP 30 Leaders’ Summit in Belém, Brazil.
He called out those who are still making record profits from “climate devastation.” With billions spent on lobbying, deceiving the public, and obstructing progress, too many leaders remained captive to these entrenched interests.
Guterres quoted Prof. Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, who earlier told the plenary that the “alarming streak of exceptional temperatures continues.
“2025 is set to be either the second or third warmest year we have ever observed. The past three years have been the warmest on record. This is the world that my two-year-old grandson was born into.”
She listed the problems associated with this temperature rise, including ocean heat at record highs, affecting marine ecosystems and economies, sea level rise, and Antarctic and Arctic sea ice are tracking at record lows
“And, on a daily basis, we see destructive weather: Months’ worth of rainfall in a matter of minutes, and our rivers on the ground are evaporating into atmospheric rivers in the sky. We have seen extreme heat and fire and supercharged tropical cyclones—as with Hurricane Melissa last week.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said it was also necessary to change the conditions that led to climate change.
In his opening address, Lula said, “Climate change is the result of the same dynamics that, over centuries, have broken our societies and split our societies between rich and poor and split the world between developed countries and developing countries.
“It will be impossible to contain climate change without overcoming inequalities within and between nations.
“Climate Justice is an ally of fighting hunger and poverty, in the struggle against racism and gender inequality and the promotion of a global governance that will be more representative and more inclusive.”
Lula said it had been a bold decision to hold the climate talk in Belém, within the Amazon.
“Humanity has been aware of the impact of climate change for more than 35 years since the publication of the first report from the IPCC, but it took 28 conferences to recognize, for the first time in Dubai, the need to get rid of fossil fuel and to stop and reverse the deforestation,” Lula said.
Referring to the Baku to Belém Roadmap, he said it took another year to admit in Baku how climate finance should be scaled up to “at least $1.3tn” a year by 2035.
“I am convinced that although we will face difficulties and contradictions, we need the roadmaps to plan in a fair way, reverse the deforestation, overcome the dependency on fossil fuel, and mobilize the necessary sources to reach these objectives,” Lula said.
Guterres and Saulo both said that the science that tells us about the temperature also has the solutions.
“Science is not only warning us; it is equipping us to adapt. Renewable energy capacity is growing faster than ever. Climate intelligence can ensure that clean energy systems are reliable, flexible, and resilient,” Saulo said.
Guterres reiterated the urgency of addressing the climate crisis.
“Too many countries are starved of the resources to adapt and locked out of the clean energy transition, and too many people are losing hope that their leaders will act. We need to move faster and move together, and this talk must ignite a decade of acceleration and delivery.”
NOTE: This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.
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