16 Feb 2026 WSIS+20, COP30 and a just digital climate transition

Aniruddha Jena

WSIS+20 reaffirmed a people-centred digital future while COP30’s Belém outcomes pushed climate action toward implementation. This article maps their common ground and proposes a practical agenda where communication rights drive climate justice.

The 20-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) restated a core commitment: digital transformation must advance inclusion, participation, and human rights, with universal and meaningful connectivity as a baseline for development [1]. In parallel, the United Nations’ Global Digital Compact (GDC) set out guardrails for a shared digital future: close digital divides; ensure human rights online; improve trust and safety; govern data responsibly; and steer artificial intelligence toward public interest goals with accountability [2].

At COP30 in Belém, states and nonstate actors emphasised delivery. Across the official wrapups and expert syntheses, several throughlines stand out: a push to accelerate adaptation planning and finance, operational advances around lossanddamage arrangements, signals on a just transition away from fossil fuels, and the need to strengthen information flows and accountability so commitments translate into action [3][4][5][6][7]. The Belém Action Agenda catalogued initiatives meant to turn goals into practice, from locally led adaptation to naturepositive pathways and earlywarning capacities [6]. The convergence with WSIS+20 is practical rather than rhetorical: climate action succeeds only if people can access timely, intelligible, trustworthy information, speak and be heard in decisions, and seek remedy when systems fail. That is the substance of communication justice.

Where the agendas meet: communication justice as climate infrastructure

Communication justice links WSIS+20 and COP30 along four interfaces. First is meaningful connectivity. Plans and warnings do not reach households that lack daily, private internet access on an appropriate device at adequate speed and data. Global analyses show that device costs and quality gaps remain binding constraints for the poorest users, even where data is relatively affordable [8]. WSIS+20’s emphasis on universal, meaningful connectivity aligns with COP30’s call to make adaptation practical, from heat health alerts to anticipatory action [1][3][6].

Second is accessibility and language inclusion. Climate information often fails to travel across languages and abilities. Interfaces are not consistently accessible to people who depend on screen readers or captions; many alerts and consultations are not available in minority languages. WSIS+20 and the GDC frame accessibility as a default obligation; climate action cannot be just if those most exposed cannot read, hear, or interact with the systems meant to protect them [1][2].

Third is rights-preserving data governance. Climate services rely on sensitive personal and community data, and on crossborder data flows. The GDC’s stress on human rights, accountability, and responsible data governance provides a foundation for climatedata sharing with consent, purpose limitation, and remedy. Without this spine, climate technologies risk reproducing surveillance and exclusion [2].

Fourth is information integrity and participation. Mis/disinformation and targeted online abuse distort climate debates and chill the voices of women, youth, Indigenous peoples and frontline communities. A people-centred digital order requires safer online spaces, multilingual moderation capacity, and transparent systems for appeal. Belém’s emphasis on delivery invites stronger measurement and public oversight; WSIS+20 offers the enabling norms for that oversight [1][3][4][5][7].

Global fault lines that block delivery

Despite the new momentum, several systemic gaps cut across regions and income levels.

Access and affordability gaps. Hundreds of millions still lack daily, reliable connectivity on a device they own and trust. The poorest 40% face the steepest device affordability barrier; speed, latency, and data allowances often fall below what earlywarning and publicservice platforms require [8].

Accessibility and language gaps. Many national alerting and consultation systems are not accessible by design, lack support for minority languages, or rely on bandwidthheavy formats that fail during power or network disruptions. This undermines “lastmile” adaptation and preparedness [1][3][6].

Rights and remedy gaps. Weak or fragmented dataprotection regimes and opaque surveillance practices erode trust, while network disruptions or shutdowns during unrest or disasters can sever earlywarning and humanitarian coordination. Remedy pathways for digital harms remain slow and elitecentric in many jurisdictions [2][4][7].

Governance and financing gaps. Universal service funds and climate finance windows rarely prioritise community networks, publicinterest media, or multilingual earlywarning pipelines; monitoring often counts coverage, not use, comprehension, or actionability [6][7].

Knowledge and power gaps. Informationsociety scholarship shows that infrastructures stabilise power relations; people may be connected yet incorporated on adverse terms that reproduce inequality [12][13][14]. Climate technologies are no exception: without corrective design and accountability, new systems amplify old exclusions [12][14].

Field evidence: approaches that travel

Across continents, a set of practical approaches has demonstrated value and can be embedded in climate delivery.

Community media and local networks for early warning.

Community radios and local connectivity initiatives have translated meteorological feeds into timely, trusted formats, improving preparedness for floods, cyclones, heatwaves, and wildfire smoke. These initiatives work best when coproduced with women’s groups and Indigenous knowledge holders and when they are integrated with official alerting channels. WSIS+20’s universalaccess ethos and COP30’s delivery mindset converge here: earlywarning is only as effective as its uptake [1][3][6].

Open climate data with guardrails.

Rights-respecting data commons allow local innovators to build services, from climatesmart agriculture advisories to neighbourhood heat dashboards. The GDC’s framing supports consent, purpose limitation, and grievance redress across borders, enabling use without extraction [2][5].

Language technologies for public alerts.

Publicinterest language platforms and translation missions can lower barriers so heat advisories, evacuation instructions, and drought notices reach people in the languages they use. When paired with lowbandwidth channels (cell broadcast, USSD, IVR) and offline fallbacks, reach and comprehension increase [1][6].

Accountable AI for climate services.

Predictive models for extreme weather, health risks, or infrastructure stress can be powerful, but they require documented risk assessments, bias evaluation, and appeal rights for affected users. The GDC points to auditable, humancentred AI; COP30’s focus on implementation and accountability aligns with that direction [2][3][7].

A twelvemonth delivery checklist for 2026

Governments and UNFCCC bodies.

Embed meaningful connectivity targets for climate services in adaptation plans and NDC updates; adopt accessibilitybydefault standards for all public alerting and consultation systems; prohibit blanket internet shutdowns during disasters; and publish annual delivery scorecards that track reach, comprehension, and remedy [1][3][6][7].

Regulators and public agencies (telecom, disaster, meteorological, dataprotection).

Enforce minimum quality of service for entrylevel mobile plans; require language-wise accessibility and lowbandwidth fallbacks for alerts; mandate rights-preserving APIs for public alert systems; and establish fast, multilingual grievance mechanisms with escalation to independent oversight [1][2][6].

Platforms and telcos/ISPs.

Resource language-specific safety and crisis response teams; provide voice first, low bandwidth channels for verified alerts; publish independent audits of contentmoderation capacity and response times by language; and implement privacy protections for shared device and lowliteracy users [2][5][7].

Cities, regions, and civil society.

Expand community networks and publicinterest media in hazard prone regions; train local media and civic groups in climate literacy and verification; run safety clinics for at risk groups; and codesign feedback loops so agencies can correct alerting failures quickly [1][6].

Donors and climate funds.

Tie climate finance to communication justice enablers, including connectivity, accessibility retrofits, and safety systems; fund independent evaluations of earlywarning reach, comprehension, and actionability; and support public interest research in underresourced languages on climate and information integrity [4][6][7][10][11].

Why this works: the analytical spine

Information society research offers two clear cautions and one opportunity. First, technological determinism, assuming that more data or faster networks automatically yield equity, has repeatedly failed; institutions and power shape outcomes [12][13][14]. It is governance, market structure, language hierarchies, and design choices that determine who benefits from a new system and who is left to the margins, even when infrastructure expands [12][13][14]. Second, “adverse digital incorporation” describes how people may be connected but on terms that reproduce inequality, from unaffordable devices to interfaces that assume literacy or majority languages [15]. In practice this looks like one handset shared across a family, pay-as-you-go plans that ration access, and public portals that presume high literacy, all of which bend participation away from those most exposed to climate risk [15].

Against these cautions stands a practical opportunity. The opportunity is to treat communication rights, access, participation, pluralism, gender equality, safety, and accountability, as delivery mechanisms, not slogans. That means specifying yardsticks that can be monitored in real time: reach into lowincome and remote communities, comprehension in relevant languages and accessible formats, timeliness during hazards, protection from online harms that silence participation, and remedy when systems fail [10][11].

Read this way, the WSIS+20/GDC digital track becomes the enabling layer for COP30’s implementation agenda, connecting climate finance and adaptation plans to everyday information conditions.

Conclusion: a just transition needs a just information order

Belém placed a premium on delivery. WSIS+20 and the GDC supply an enabling blueprint for the information order that delivery requires. The next twelve months should be judged by whether climate services reach people every day, in languages and formats they use, and whether systems keep people safe and provide remedy when things break. Progress is measurable: earlywarning channels that function at low bandwidth and in minority languages; entrylevel mobile plans that meet minimum quality standards; accessible by default design across alerting and consultation platforms; public, rightspreserving protocols for climate data sharing; language wise safety capacity and transparent appeal routes on major platforms; and fast, multilingual grievance mechanisms that resolve cases within stated timelines, with independent oversight and annual reporting.

If these conditions are met, communication justice becomes climate infrastructure in practice, turning budgets and policies into lived protection for those at greatest risk. If they are not, finance and targets will remain numbers on a page, and the trust needed for collective action will continue to erode.

The opportunity is within reach: align WSIS+20’s people-centred digital commitments with COP30’s implementation agenda, fund the missing pieces, publish what is working and what is not, and coursecorrect quickly with affected communities at the table. That is how summits move from words to the world. ν

Notes

[1] ITU. Highlights, Announcements, and Key Outcomes(2025). https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/forum/2025/en/Home/Outcomes

[2] United Nations. Global Digital Compact (adopted September 2024; published 2024–2025). https://www.un.org/global-digital-compact/sites/default/files/2024-09/Global%20Digital%20Compact%20-%20English_0.pdf

[3] UN News. Belém COP30 delivers climate finance boost and a pledge to plan fossil fuel transition (2025). https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/11/1166433

[4] European Commission. What did COP30 achieve? Climate Action brief (2025). https://climate.ec.europa.eu/news-other-reads/news/what-did-cop30-achieve-2025-12-01_en

[5] World Resources Institute (WRI). COP30: Outcomes, Disappointments and What’s Next (2025). https://www.wri.org/insights/cop30-outcomes-next-steps

[6] COP30 Action Agenda. Final Report (2025). https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/COP30%20Action%20Agenda_Final%20Report.docx.pdf

[7] United Nations University (UNU). 5 Outcomes from COP30: What the Belém Political Package Really Delivered (2025). https://unu.edu/ehs/article/5-outcomes-cop-30-what-belem-political-package-really-delivered

[8] GSMA. The State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2024 (global device affordability and usage gaps). https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/the-state-of-mobile-internet-connectivity-2024

[9] WACC. Nothing about us without us: why digital justice requires communication rights (2025). https://waccglobal.org/nothing-about-us-without-us-why-digital-justice-requires-communication-rights/

[10] ORF. Data for Digital Justice: Gender Equality in the Age of Information (2025). https://www.orfonline.org/english/expert-speak/data-for-digital-justice-gender-equality-in-the-age-of-information

[11] Global Digital Inclusion Partnership. The Global Digital Compact is here: what now for civil society? (2024–2025). https://globaldigitalinclusion.org/2024/10/30/the-global-digital-compact-is-here-what-now-for-civil-society/

[12] Duff, A. S. Daniel Bell’s theory of the information society (1998). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/016555159802400601

[13] Mansell, R. The life and times of the Information Society (2010). https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29149/1/The%20life%20and%20times%20of%20the%20information%20society%20(LSERO).pdf

[14] The Information Society: Introduction, Vol. 1 (LSE Research Online) (2009). https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/23743/2/The_Information_Society_Intro_vol1_(LSERO).pdf

[15] Heeks, R. Digital inequality beyond the digital divide: adverse digital incorporation in the global South (2022). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/02681102.2022.2068492?needAccess=tru

 

Aniruddha Jena (PhD) is Assistant Professor in the Communications Area at the Indian Institute of Management Kashipur. His work focuses on communication rights, alternative and community media, and communication for social change.