Climate Technologies and Future Crime

Research summary

Technology plays a fundamental role in addressing climate change. Climate technologies have different functions: some focus on mitigation, others on adaptation. Examples include technology suites for carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) (Serin 2023), decentralized energy grids to supply energy to local communities independently of large-scale energy plants, hydrogen-powered transports and machines and solar geoengineering which reflects the sunlight away from the Earth’s surface (Robinson and Serin 2022; Napp et al 2017). Adaptation technologies seek to make appropriate adjustments and respond to the effects of climatic change, either by reducing the negative ones or by exploiting the positive ones (UNFCCC 2006). These include a broader range of technologies, many of which are already commonly used and, therefore, more familiar, such as architectural barriers against flooding, technologies for integrated water resource management (IWRM)or air conditioning. 

Climate technologies are rapidly evolving. Yet the crime and security implications of such technologies have so far been overlooked. There is no mention of crime in the latest (2023) IPCC synthesis report and references to “security” in the report only concern food or water security. The predictable criminogenic effects of such technologies are many and multifaceted. At a basic level, climate technologies themselves can be targets or instruments of crimes seeking to misuse, misappropriate or damage them. Some simple examples are the various cases of solar panel theft already reported by the media (Dutton 2022; Connell 2023) or terrorist attacks on water resource management systems (cf. Gleick 2006). 

But there can be also more complex criminogenic effects. Climate technologies are reshaping the immediate environments in which they operate (for instance, water resource management or farming processes and practices) as well as the broader societal, finance and business environments that provide the resources to develop, manufacture, disseminate and commercialise such technologies. The availability of financial or natural resources can also fuel conflict and human rights violations. 

This project will provide a systematic mapping of climate technologies and an exploration of the crime and security implications of new and emerging mitigation technologies. This study will address only future crimes related to mitigation technologies which are fewer and, overall, more innovative and less familiar than many adaptation technologies. This will keep the project focused specifically on new and emerging technologies and more manageable. 

The project will perform a preliminary literature search to map climate technologies. This will be complemented by a preliminary survey of technology experts to identify mitigation technologies that did not emerge from the literature search. The results of both the preliminary search and survey will inform a state-of-the-art systematic literature review of the crime risks related to mitigation technologies. The findings of the literature review will, in turn, inform a Delphi study which will include a two-round survey and a live serious game event for both experts in climate technologies and experts in crime and security to reach a consensus on future crime risks of climate technologies and possible countermeasures.