February 27, 2008—Intellect, the trade association for the UK technology industry, recently published a report examining the role of technology in tackling climate change.
The authors believe that High Tech: Low Carbon—The role of technology in tackling carbon change (.pdf file) is the first publicly available document to set out the issues relating to the energy demands of products and services together with a clear action plan for the sector to address them. In addition, it discusses the impact of technology on other sectors, stating that if low-carbon technologies are not implemented soon, irreparable harm will be done to the environment.
According to the report, the energy use related to ICT (information communications technologies) currently accounts for about 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions. If all else remained equal, there could be a five-fold increase by 2050 in emissions related to ICT and a six-fold increase in the emissions related to consumer electronics (CE).
However, massive improvements in the energy efficiency of both sectors are already helping to mitigate this risk, says the report. Intellect believes the industry can exceed the target set by the CBI Climate Change Task Force for a 30% improvement in the efficiency of electrical equipment by 2030. Indeed many products will exceed these targets by 2010, says Intellect. These efficiency improvements will be related to when products are both in “on” mode and “standby” mode.
The report also supports carbon accounting.
