Can digital ocean twins shape the future of multilateral environmental negotiations?

In the light of time pressure, persisting data gaps, and challenges to the implementation of global sustainability goals for ocean protection, the European Commission is currently building a prototype digital twin of the ocean (DTO). The EU DTO is part of a larger set of substantial global and national efforts to develop highly accurate digital models of the ocean for ‘better decision-making’ and an emerging high-tech knowledge infrastructure that turns various types of ocean data into prediction tools for public and private actors. However, as this paper argues, DTOs are a political issue in themselves. Firstly, DTOs run the risk of perpetuating global inequalities because the capacities to develop, access, and use ocean data are unequally distributed. Secondly, DTOs may create an array of legal and political uncertainties regarding data access, ownership, security, and sharing. Thirdly, DTOs should be embedded into a set of norms, rules, and values to prevent abuse and misuse in practice — a neglected aspect in the current ‘twin rush’. This paper re-conceptualizes digital twins as socio-technical relations operating under a specific set of institutional, political, and economic conditions and within a hybrid research, data, and observation environment and explores how they may shape multilateral environmental negotiations in the future.