Climate Change: What is Computing’s Responsibility?

This Manifesto was produced from the Perspectives Workshop 25122 entitled "Climate Change: What is Computing’s Responsibility?" held March 16-19, 2025 at Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany. The Workshop provided a forum for world-leading computer scientists and expert consultants on environmental policy and sustainable transition to engage in a critical and urgent conversation about computing’s responsibilities in addressing climate change - or more aptly, climate crisis. The resulting Manifesto outlines commitments and directions for future action which, if adopted as a basis for more responsible computing practices, will help ensure that these technologies do not threaten the long-term habitability of the planet. We preface our Manifesto with a recognition that humanity is on a path that is not in agreement with international global warming targets and explore how computing technologies are currently hastening the overshoot of these boundaries. We critically assess the vaunted potential for harnessing computing technologies for the mitigation of global warming, agreeing that, under current circumstances, computing is contributing to negative environmental impacts in other sectors. Computing primarily improves efficiency and reduces costs which leads to more consumption and more negative environmental impact. Relying solely on efficiency gains in computing has thus far proven to be insufficient to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, computing’s purpose within a strategy for tackling climate change must be reimagined. Our recommendations cover changes that need to be urgently made to the design priorities of computing technologies, but also speak to the more systemic shift in mindset, with sustainability and human rights providing a necessary moral foundation for developing the kinds of computing technologies most needed by society. We also stress the importance of digital policy that accounts for both the direct material impacts of computing and the detrimental indirect impacts arising from computing-enabled efficiencies, and the role of computing professionals in informing policy making.