Copenhagen Day Four: ranking the nations on ICT energy efficiency
Sue Wheat
10th December 2009
Those walking the corridors of the UN's Bella Centre this week and next may have their minds on 'bigger' things than how much energy their computers are using, but that was the subject of one of today's sessions at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit and it's a major issue facing many businesses across the globe as they look for ways to reduce their carbon emissions and energy costs.
With more than 1.5 billion people online around the world, scientists estimate that the energy footprint of the net is growing by more than 10 per cent each year. But we're not just talking about the energy it takes to have millions of computers switched on all day (and sometimes all night). It's the massive amounts of energy required to run data centres and servers to keep the internet working and computers across the globe backed up and talking to each other, plus the energy needed for the buildings they sit in and transport we use.
Today's session focused on the role information and communication technologies (ICT) can play to curb almost 5.8 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2020.
"5.8 billion tonnes is 25 per cent of all countries emissions so quite a significant proportion," said Vernon Turner, senior vice president of IDC's Enterprise Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research. IDC is a global provider of market intelligence for the information technology and telecommunications markets.
So the release of an ICT Sustainability Index, in which the G20 nations have been ranked on their ability to reduce their CO2 emissions through the focused use of ICT, is quite an interesting development, providing a comparison of sustainability worldwide on this industry.
The research (conducted by IDC and jointly sponsored by Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Intel, and Schneider Electric) examined the potential of seventeen technologies to reduce CO2 emissions in four major economic sectors (energy generation and distribution, transport, industry and building) across the G20 nations.
Japan was ahead of the game by far in the Index and was identified as the only top-tier country, winning by a considerable margin over the United States in second place. The UK tied in third place with Brazil, France and Germany.
"Japan received the top spot by being able to balance its CO2 creation and use, with its GDP, its transportation network, its building infrastructures, and its ICT investments, to establish a sustainable economy and environment," said Turner.
The energy generation and distribution sector, has the biggest potential savings, and within it, renewable energy management systems (part of smart grids) offer the best opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions. The research found that China has the biggest opportunity in this sector, with the potential to save almost 200 million tons of CO2 using these technologies.
The United States could reduce its 2020 CO2 emissions target by over 500 million tons if it made appropriate changes within the transport sector. And Energy Management Systems and Intelligent Building Designs offer up the most opportunity of all technologies or nearly 12 per cent of all G20 energy savings.
"As expected, China and the United States have some great opportunities ahead of them," said Roberta Bigliani, research director at IDC Energy Insights. "The use of software solutions offering energy management systems should be a key focus for them and all of the G20 nations."
"Our key messages are that we believe we have identified the technologies that can have a major impact," said Taylor. "But at the moment there is great variability between nations to adopt the technologies we need to help policy makers to invest time and resources."
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