ITU-UNESCO - Broadband could eliminate CO2 equivalent to 50% of US coal plant emissions

[The Broadband commission is a joint effort of ITU and UNESCO. It is made up of some very prestigious folks such as Carlos Slim, John Chambers, heads of government etc. While the numbers they quote are impressive in terms of the impact of broadband in reducing GHG emissions, I still believe that the greatest benefit will be to use broadband as a key component of a cap and reward system. Cap and reward is an alternative to carbon taxes and/or cap and trade where consumers are provided credits in order to purchase low carbon products and services. For more details please see http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ -- BSA]

http://www.broadbandcommission.org/media/stories/9-climate-change.pdf

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development believes that high-speed, high-capacity broadband connections to the Internet are an essential element in modern society, with wide economic and social benefits. Its mission is to promote the adoption of broadband-friendly practice and policies so that the entire world can take advantage of the benefits broadband can offer.
More specifically, the Broadband Commission wants to demonstrate that broadband networks:
• have the same level of importance as roads and electricity networks; they are basic infrastructure in a modern society;
• are uniquely powerful tools for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs);
• are remarkably cost-effective and offer an impressive return-on-investment (ROI) for both developed and developing economies;
• underpin all industrial sectors and increasingly are the foundation of public services and social progress
• must be coordinated nationally by governments in partnership with industry, in order too reap the full benefit of these powerful tools.

The establishment of the Broadband Commission in 2010 comes five years after the World Summit on the Information Society, and ten years after the launch of the Millennium Development Goals. Expanding broadband access in every country is the key way to accelerate attainment of those goals by the target date of 2015. The Broadband Commission will define practical ways in which countries — at all stages of development — can achieve this, in cooperation with the private sector.
The Commissioners represent governments from around the world, relevant industries, international agencies, and organizations concerned with development. Leaders in their field, they each present on this site a vision for a future based on broadband.

The Broadband Commission will report its findings to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in September 2010, immediately before the summit to be held in New York to review work on achieving the Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015. With only five years left before then, broadband networks are an essential and uniquely powerful tool for achieving those goals and lifting people out of poverty worldwide.

The initial outcomes of the Commission will take the form of two reports. Broadband: A Leadership Imperative, will be a concise, high-level report that directly reflects input from the Commissioners. Broadband: A Platform for Progress will be a comprehensive analytical report that looks at financing models, return on investment, technology choices, and strategies for deployment across a range of different types of economies.

Tackling the climate change challenge through broadband
“ICTs [information and communication technologies] are vital to confronting one of the biggest
problems we face as a planet: the threat of climate change” – Ban Ki-moon, United Nations
Secretary General, at ITU Telecom World 2009

It is now widely recognized that universal broadband networks have enormous potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that threaten dangerous global warming, as well as an important role in monitoring the impact of climate change and helping communities to adapt.

Estimates cited by the US National Broadband Plan suggest that broadband and ICTs could prevent more than a billion metric tons of US carbon emissions per year by 2020, equivalent to half the current total emissions of US coal-fired power stations. Similarly, the European Union’s Digital Agenda envisages a key role for broadband in meeting the EU’s commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth by 2020 (from 1990 levels).

Broadband opportunities to combat climate change include:
• Smart grids, coupled with smart meters in homes and businesses, to manage electricity demand, boost network
efficiency and make it easy to integrate renewable energy sources.
• Smart buildings designed to minimize energy consumption (or power themselves), including systems to automatically
turn off lighting and appliances not in use.
• Smart motor systems to improve efficiency of industrial processes;
• Smart transport and logistics systems to cut energy use through better management of traffic and freight. One example: the global freight forwarding company UPS calculates it saved 3.1 million gallons of fuel in one year simply by plotting delivery routes that enabled its trucks to take advantage of ‘turn right on red’ US traffic laws and so reduce idling time.
• E-commerce, teleconferencing and teleworking to reduce transport and travel demands (and reduce the need to construct energy-consuming offices and shops). High-definition ‘telepresence’ systems are transforming videoconferencing and extending its applications. International analyst The Gartner Group estimates video ‘telepresence’
will replace over two million airline seats by 2012.
• ‘Dematerialization’ to replace physical objects – CDs, DVDs, books, newspapers, maps, paper invoices and documents – with virtual ones.

Collectively, such measures could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15%, five times the ICT industry’s own carbon footprint. Nevertheless, minimizing this footprint – which currently amounts to 2-3% of global emissions, around the same as the entire aviation industry – is also essential. Data centres already consume more electricity than countries like Argentina or the Netherlands. In a typical office building, ICTs may account for 40% of all energy consumed, the
second biggest energy drain after heating and cooling. As broadband becomes standard infrastructure, these figures could climb still higher.

Measures now being adopted include moving data centres to cooler locations or powering them with renewable energy, the adoption of a universal energy-efficient charger that fits all new mobile phone models – globally standardized by ITU in 2009 – and introduction of new technologies such as next generation networks (NGNs) that can cut emissions by 40%.

ITU is supporting these efforts by developing a common methodology for measuring the industry’s carbon footprint, and promoting more energy-efficient ICTs through standard setting. It is also ‘greening’ its own operations. In September 2009 ITU organized the first-ever virtual conference on ICTs and climate change, with more than 400 virtual participants and 19 experts speaking virtually from nine different locations. By 2012, says Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General, the organization aims to be climate neutral.



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