By Hanna Gabriel
European researchers are creating an online tool that maps the entire ocean. Will it lead to more science-based diplomatic negotiations or just perpetuate existing problems? A political science perspective.
Anyone who owns an aquarium knows how mesmerizing the many details of the underwater world can be. Now imagine scaling that up to the entire planet’s oceans. In 2022, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched an initiative to create the world’s largest virtual aquarium: the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO). The ambitious project aims to combine physical, chemical, biological and socio-economic data with advanced computer models and artificial intelligence to yield the most detailed representation of the world’s waters to date.
Digital twins as catalysts for political change?
A prototype of the DTO Core Infrastructure was released earlier this year and is accessible to everyone for testing. Ultimately, the goal is to provide an online tool that allows policy makers, industry and the public to explore the impact of different interventions on the marine ecosystem and gain insights for evidence-based environmental decisions.
While this may sound like a nautical version of Google Maps, the Commission has high hopes for the DTO’s impact on policy. “Ocean research is complex and can only generate results at a certain pace. The narrative behind the DTO is that it will enable us to take political action by filling data gaps and improving the interface between science and politics,” says Alice Vadrot, a political scientist and member of the Environment and Climate Research Hub (ECH) at the University of Vienna.
ERC project: from deep-sea mining to plastic pollution
According to Vadrot, the DTO could be a game-changer, for example, in helping officials select sites for protected areas in international waters. This, in turn, is a necessary step towards achieving the “30×30” target set by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to protect 30% of the planet for nature by 2030. In another example, the DTO could be used to support environmental impact assessments for deep-sea mining beyond national jurisdiction, an area of growing commercial interest and many unresolved environmental issues. A third area explored by Vadrot’s research is how the DTO could be utilized to support negotiations regarding plastic pollution of the world’s waters.
But can the DTO really change the future of how global environmental policy is negotiated? Will it set a new course for balancing the interests of different stakeholders? Vadrot’s latest project, TwinPolitics, funded by a € 2 million ERC Consolidator Grant, aims to dive deep into these questions. The project will explore how the DTO’s data is collected and systematically compared. It will investigate who the people working on the DTO actually are and what knowledge resources they take into account. Crucially, the project will investigate whether policy-makers accept the DTO and how they might use it to make evidence-based decisions.
Navigating the challenges
“Digital twins are still relatively unknown in political spaces,” says Vadrot, who regularly observes and comments on diplomatic negotiations and knows about their strengths and weaknesses. “Diplomacy is fundamentally resistant to change, as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The hope is that digital twins like the DTO can accelerate the lengthy and complex diplomatic process.
However, the DTO also raises concerns about the information deficit of many actors. “Especially when it comes to the ocean, there is an incredible knowledge and data discrepancy between the Global North and South,” says Vadrot. The DTO could help bridge that gap – or potentially widen it. “There is a risk that as some actors develop digital tools, the gap could widen, potentially leading to new forms of a kind of colonialism through data.”
The political dimension of the DTO
Vadrot plans to conduct empirical research at organisations such as Mercator Ocean International (MOi), a non-profit organisation in Toulouse that is developing the DTO, along with other institutions. Her team will observe how scientists create and use the DTO, comparing these findings with smaller digital twins already modeling specific local areas, such as single coral reefs. These findings will be embedded in a comparison of digital twin policies in the US, EU and China. (More details on the milestones Vadrot and her team set sails for can be found on their website.)
In addition, Vadrot’s team will gather perspectives on the application and challenges of the DTO. “We will conduct surveys to understand the data needs and concerns of countries in the Global South”, she says. “In a final step, we will develop recommendations for the integration of the digital twin into multilateral negotiation settings, specifying when and under what conditions it should be used.” Overall, the TwinPolitics project will thereby highlight the political dimension of the DTO. This is crucial, given that the DTO is sometimes perceived as purely objective and almost apolitical, as Vadrot says.
What will the future hold?
“My expectation is that the European Commission’s DTO will primarily be showcased at side events accompanying the official negotiations,” Vadrot remarks regarding the actual hands-on use of the DTO to support policy discussions with science-based scenarios. “Our team will also attend these negotiations to observe how the DTO is received and how other countries, such as China and the US, respond to it.”
Ultimately, the success of the DTO, like any other digital twin, will depend not only on its scientific accuracy, but also on the scope and inclusiveness of its development and application. Beyond scientists, groups such as conservation organisations, indigenous communities, and even the fishing industry possess valuable ocean data. A truly comprehensive digital twin must incorporate all available knowledge and address diverse needs. Taken together, these aspects will determine whether the virtual aquarium is seen as a curiosity or a game-changing tool for science-based marine policy.
Alice Vadrot is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Environment at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna. She has been a research fellow at Cambridge University and headed the research part of the NEOS Lab Think Tank. In 2018, she received an ERC Starting Grant for her project MARIPOLDATA (2018-2024), followed by an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2023. Vadrot is a member of the Management Board of the Environment and Climate Hub of the University of Vienna and a delegate of the Young Academy to the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She serves on the Mission Board of the EU Water Mission and is involved in the Austrian Biodiversity Council.
Further Information:
- Alice Vadrot at the Audimax Podcast: “Das Klima zwischen Politik und Wissenschaft” (German)
🛈 In a Nutshell
- The Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) is an initiative launched by the European Commission to create a comprehensive digital model of the world’s oceans.
- The ERC-funded TwinPolitics project, led by Alice Vadrot, investigates the DTO’s creation, the stakeholders involved and its potential use in international diplomacy.
- Vadrot, a political scientist, aims to address concerns about data accessibility, ownership and the risk of widening the gap between the Global North and South in terms of ocean knowledge.
- Most importantly, the project will provide recommendations for the use of the DTO in multilateral negotiations, focusing on the diverse needs of various stakeholders, including developing countries.
