By Gabriel Solomon

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says that information and communications technologies are vital to confront global warming and are very much part of the solution.

They can cut emissions in other sectors and help countries adapt to climate change. The incoming chairman of BP, Carl-Henric Svanberg, agrees and says that ICTs can cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 20%.

The Climate Group’s CEO, Steve Howard, maintains that ICTs can unlock the clean green industrial revolution that global leaders have been talking about since they bailed out the banks.

So ICT’s must have been high up on the climate change agenda and a key focus for sealing the deal at December 2009’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, aka COP15, right?

Well, no. Wrong. And the omission is not an oversight. The ICT industry has been banging on government doors for the last few years saying: “We are part of the solution. We have proof. Now, please may we discuss how we can work together to maximise our potential to cut global emissions?”

But industry’s knuckles are bruised and its voice has been drowned out by the bureaucrats. Why?

My take is that the climate change folk just don’t get the enabling role ICT can play. The sector is not a big polluter so there are no obvious red flags. Mobile’s emissions are only 0.5% of the global total, for example, and expected to be at similar levels in 2020.

Sure, the climate change folk use their mobile phones like the next person and carry their laptops onto aeroplanes and into hotels and meeting rooms. Very useful kit.

“But how can these lower my carbon footprint?” they ask.

Pay attention. Smart mobile solutions designed to lower emissions in other sectors can have the same impact as taking one in every three cars off the road. Add in broader ICT solutions and collectively the enabling impact could be equivalent to shutting down more than 4,500 coal-fired power stations by 2020.

You want practical examples? Here’s one: Isotrak’s fleet management system is designed to cut fuel costs, lower CO2 emissions, reduce fleet size and save staff time.

Using standard SIM cards to transfer data over Vodafone’s network, UK supermarket chain Asda’s fleet saved 29 million road kilometres, or 28 kilotonnes of CO2, and cut fuel costs by 23% over three years.

Here’s another: In Croatia Ericsson’s e-health system is supporting primary health care, reducing patient travel and paper consumption. Related CO2 emissions reductions based on life cycle assessment amount to 15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.

A host of further examples and case studies of smart solutions working today can be found in the GSM Association’s Mobile’s Green Manifesto, www.gsmworld.com/greenmanifesto, and the Vodafone Carbon Connections and GeSI SMART2020 reports.

The mobile and ICT sectors are delivering carbon saving solutions around the globe. But to realise the full enabling potential, governments need to act.

• First, mobile and ICT solutions must be included in government policies and investment programmes.
• Second, the development of open standards, especially for machine to machine communications, must be encouraged to ensure interoperability and lower costs by driving scale efficiencies.
• Third, a common framework to measure energy and environmental performance needs to be facilitated. And finally, support should be given to broadband infrastructure deployment.

Whereas the Copenhagen conference focused on a top-down target-setting agenda, government support for the mobile and ICT sectors will accelerate a sustainable bottom up approach to lowering carbon emissions. By not answering industry’s call, there is a risk that the top down aspirations and targets of world leaders will remain just that.

The ICT industry is delivering many solutions to fight climate change now and is investing in more for tomorrow — for example, programmes in smart metering, grids, buildings, transportation and logistics. The key to achieving massive global scale required to stop climate change rests in government hands.

Time is running out. Governments must to do the right thing and unlock our green future and unleash the rainbow of problem solving talent inherent in human kind. GTB