A Smart Green Third Industrial Revolution 2015 - 2020

The EU economy is slowing, productivity is waning, and unemployment remains stubbornly high. The question being raised with increasing urgency is how to rekindle “The European Dream.” The EU owes its success to a forward thinking series of economic and social visions that have motivated member states and the citizenry to continue on a common journey: the Maastricht Treaty, creating a political Union; the introduction of the Euro, to establish a Monetary Union; the enlargement of member states, to create a continental family of nations; and the 20-20-20 goals, to transition into a sustainable low-carbon economy. The EU now finds itself in limbo without a clear vision of the next stage of its journey. That’s about to change. The European Union is embarking on a bold new course between 2015 and 2020 to create a high-tech 21st Century integrated single market that can unite its 500 million citizens and 28 member states, making Europe potentially the most productive commercial space in the world. The plan is called Digital Europe. The digitalization of Europe involves much more than providing universal broadband, free Wi-Fi, and a flow of Big Data. The digital economy will revolutionize every commercial sector, disrupt the workings of virtually every industry, bring with it unprecedented new economic opportunities, put millions of people back to work, and create a more sustainable low-carbon society to mitigate climate change. To grasp the enormity of the economic change taking place, we need to understand the technological forces that have given rise to new economic systems throughout history. Every great economic paradigm requires three elements, each of which interacts with the other to enable the system to operate as a whole: new communication technologies to more efficiently manage economic activity; new sources of energy to more efficiently power economic activity; and new modes of transportation to more efficiently move economic activity. In the 19th century, steam-powered printing and the telegraph, abundant coal, and locomotives on national rail systems gave rise to the First Industrial Revolution. In the 20th Century, centralized electricity, the telephone, radio and television, cheap oil, and internal combustion vehicles on national road systems converged to create an infrastructure for the Second Industrial Revolution.