Climate and digital transitions in a changing global order: resource dependencies, connectivity and uneven development

The effects of climate change and digital transformation on resource systems and infrastructure have raised concerns about their combined influence on international cooperation and patterns of uneven development. Digital capability can moderate climatic disruption through monitoring, early warning, resource management and infrastructure coordination. Its benefits, however, depend on reliable energy, finance, technical capacity, institutional coordination and access. Digital expansion also requires electricity, water and critical minerals, and may concentrate control over data, standards and infrastructure while transferring environmental costs to resource-producing regions. Here we review evidence from scholarly literature, policy documents, datasets, technical reports and historical sources concerning climate cooperation, critical minerals, energy, food and water systems, transregional connectivity, Arctic passages and subsea cable networks. We find that their convergence produces thickened terrains in which climatic exposure, infrastructure concentration, resource dependence, digital capability and institutional capacity accumulate and interact. Where ownership, finance and technological capability are distributed, these formations can strengthen resilience, service continuity and local value retention. Where control remains externally concentrated, they deepen dependence, exclusion and infrastructure lock-in. Our findings indicate that the emerging global order is shaped not only by control of resources, but also by the capacity to connect, coordinate and retain the gains from development.