Environmental and Energy Problems of the 4th Industrial Revolution: Legal Aspects

Abstract

The article considers the most general and most fundamental provisions of the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its consequences for ecology, energy, law. The author has analyzed the threats and challenges of digitalization processes for ecology and energy. It is shown that be the creation of an adequate environment of green technologies, products and services should provide the timely response to the great challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution. It is proved that there will be no real progress in environmental security until economic growth, new technologies regardless of the form in which they are expressed and natural constraints and indicators of the “growth limit” of human expansion are connected and properly and necessarily linked to the pace of economic development. The authors have investigated the problems of strategic planning in the sphere of digitalization of ecological and energy spheres. The country has yet to develop common concepts suitable for strategic planning and to give each of these concepts a legal definition. To date, the lack of “coherence” of plans, responsibility and systematization of numerous normative acts (by-laws) on the basis of which federal and regional information resources are functioning is unacceptable. The article is aimed to develop legislation in the field of ecology and energy, development of legal mechanisms for the implementation of the program “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” as well as improvement of enforcement practices.