Global Issues
CLIMATE CHANGE: Tech Sector Urged to Lead Green Economy
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed to the information and communications technology (ICT) community to help seal the deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
'CEOs can help government officials to understand the power of information and communications technology to address the climate threat and usher in a new green economy,' Ban Ki-moon said at a recent Telecom World 2009 conference in Geneva.
The secretary-general urged industry leaders to be bold in their efforts to communicate with world leaders and to work toward decreasing emissions - and some are answering the call.
Nineteen chief technical officers from leading global technology firms endorsed the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union's vision to have ICTs included in the Copenhagen meeting, known as COP15, as part of the solution.
'The secretary-general challenged ICT leaders and the industry has responded positively,' Janos Pasztor, director of Ban's climate change support team, told IPS.
'For too long, the need for CO2 reductions have been seen as a trade-off between economic development and care for the planet,' said Hans Vestberg, incoming CEO of Ericsson, a supplier of mobile systems.
'This does not have to be the case. Ericsson and our industry peers have the task to bring this message home to our governments and politicians. A committed global effort at COP15 is essential to secure both environmental sustainability and economic development, and ICT should be at the heart of this,' he said.
The ICT industry accounts for approximately two percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to Gartner Inc., a U.S.-based technology research and advisory company. However, this figure, equivalent to that of the aviation industry, is estimated to rise given the worldwide technology boom.
Developing countries saw a 30 percent increase in the use of information and communications technologies between 2002 and 2007, according to the International Telecommunication Union. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China and Vietnam lead the way with mounting mobile cellular growth and widespread Internet access.
Despite the growing trend toward telecommuting, video-conferencing, e-paper, and e-commerce, one report from the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) notes that replacing physical products and services with these virtual equivalents is only part - six percent - of the estimated low carbon benefits the ICT sector can deliver. Amping up the effort to reduce carbon emissions, in fact, translates into an entire transformation of global infrastructure and industry.
The GeSI report, titled 'SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age', highlights four critical tasks to improve technology function and decrease emissions.
These include inventing 'smarter' motor systems that use less electricity, applying smarter logistics to improve the efficiency of transport and storage, building smarter buildings to make living and working spaces more energy-efficient, and creating smarter electricity grids to improve their efficiency.
The result of these changes, GeSI projects, will be a reduction in human-generated global emissions within the technology sector by 15 percent by 2020.
Besides seeing a decrease is overall emissions, ICT innovations can reap additional rewards, according to the U.N. secretary-general, who noted that good climate science and information sharing would help reduce the risk and impact of natural disasters.
'When an earthquake hits, a coordinated information and communications technology system can monitor developments, send out emergency messages and help people to cope,' Ban said.
This technology is especially important where extreme weather affects lives. Between June 2008 and June 2009, 343 disasters linked to natural hazards affected more than 42 million people, taking more than 144,000 lives and causing economic damage totaling 57.4 billion dollars, according to a U.N. report released last week titled, 'Implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.'
'While Latin American and Caribbean countries are minor contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, they are often victims of negative impacts of climate change,' Malcolm Johnson, director of the Telecommunication and Standardization Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union, told IPS.
'Equitable access and ensuring connectivity to schools, rural communities and health facilities are vital to economic development and to making effective use of ICTs to combat climate change,' he added. 'Increased deployment of affordable broadband will help facilitate this.'
The results of the World Business Summit on Climate Change will be presented to the Danish government, host of COP15 in Copenhagen in December, 2009 and to world leaders negotiating the terms of the next international climate treaty.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service