ITU-T in a Nutshell

1
ITU-T WorkshopICTs Building the Green City of
the Future
ICTs as a Tool to Combat Climate Change
Arthur LevinChief, ITU-TSB
United Nations PavilionEXPO-2010, 14 May
2010 Shanghai, China
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ICTs and Climate Change

• Methodology to describe and estimate present and
  future user energy consumption of ICTs over
  their entire life cycle
• Smarter standards for greener systems
• Participation in COP

• Participants in Focus Group ICT and Climate
  Change

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon
"ITU is one of the very important stakeholders
in the area of climate change."
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Importance further identified at top level

• WTSA-08, Resolution 73, resolves that CC is a
  high priority in ITU
• WTPF (April 2009), Opinion 3, instructs promotion
  of Resolution 73, etc.
• GSC-14 (July 2009), Resolution, encourages
  related collaboration, etc.
• ITU Council (October 2009), Resolution 1307,
  unanimously decided its importance and active
  participation in UNFCCC including COP-15 in
  Copenhagen

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Evidence for climate change
Source IPCC 4th assessment report, 2007
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Why It Matters

• Impact of CC is costly for many countries even
  though they are not a major source of emissions
• E.g. total GHG emissions of Pacific Island
  countries is around 0.03 of global total, but
  half the population of island countries live
  within less than a mile of their coastlines
  coral atolls no more than 3 meters above sea
  level
• Typhoon/hurricane damage will increase by 10-26
  for each 1 degree warming of sea
• Deforestation (17-20 of GHG emissions)
• Global Humanitarian Forum estimates CC already
  killing 100-300,000 people annually

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Why ICTs Matter

• ICTs (excluding broadcasting) contribute an
  estimated 2-3 of global Greenhouse Gas emissions
• Around 0.9 ton GtCO2e in 2007
• Telecoms contributed around one quarter of this
  total
• Airplanes and shipping about 3 each

Source Gartner Group
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What trends do ICTs have at the device level?

• Market doubles every 5 years
• E.g. Broadband expanding to more users
• Until market saturates
• Then upgrades replace obsolete devices
• New devices become a must have
• E.g. HDTV, Smartphones
• Annual growth rate of internet traffic is high
• 1.8 billion Internet users worldwide
• Highest growth in data traffic Internet of
  things
• All three trends increase ICT demand for energy
• the GeSI Smart 2020 report predicts growth in
  ICTs energy use of 70 over the period 2007-2020

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REDUCING ICT SECTOR EMISSIONS
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Mitigating the impact

• Directly, e.g. through energy-saving
• Next-Generation Networks (NGN) should reduce GHG
  emissions by 40
• Modern radio technologies reduce energy
  consumption by transmitters 10 times
• Indirectly, e.g. ICTs for carbon abatement
• Video-conferencing to reduce business travel in
  Europe by 1 would save 1 m CO2 ton
• Systemically, e.g. by dematerialisation
• Intelligent Transport Systems could reduce
  vehicle carbon emissions below 130 g per km

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Placing Future Data Centres

• BT will place Energy Efficient, Green,
  Sustainable facilities based on
• Electricity is low cost, consistent, and
  available securely and in an abundance from
  renewable sources
• Fresh Air and Free Air cooling can be utilised
  all year round
• Network bandwidth low latency and high capacity
  is readily available and inexpensive
• Land is low cost, with plenty of space for
  growth/expansion
• BT will transform existing sites as much as
  possible to meet the standards of the new BT
  green data centre vision

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The Life Cycle of ICT Hardware
ICT Services

ProductionPhase
Use Phase
End-of-lifePhase
Recycling
DesignPhase
Residues
Resources
Life Cycle of an ICT product
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies calculate the
relevant environmental impacts of the life cycle
per functional unit.
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ICTs at work for monitoring climate change

• WMO World WeatherWatch, incorporating
• Global Observingsystem
• Global Telecom System
• Global Data Processingsystem
• Remote sensing
• Environmental monitoring
• Tsunami early-warning system
• Digital climate forecasting models
• GPS-enabled telemetry
• Ubiquitous sensor networks

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ICTs for adaptation ITU Role

• Telecommunications/ICTs for disaster preparedness
• Tampere Convention
• PP-06 Resolutions 36 and 136 on use ICTs for
  humanitarian assistance
• WRC Resolutions 646, 647, 673 on use of
  radiocommunications for environmental monitoring,
  public protection and disaster relief
• WTDC-06 Resolution 34 on the role of ICTs in
  mitigation of effects of disasters and
  humanitarian assistance
• Partnership Coordination Panel on Telecoms for
  Disaster Relief (PCP-TDR)
• E.164 country code (888) for UN OCHA
• Recommendations E.106 on call priority and X.1303
  on common alerting protocol

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The ICT Enabling Effect

• ICT responsible for 2-3 of global CO2 emissions
• How can we reduce ICT own emissions
• Next Generation Networks
• ICT key to reduce the other 97 of CO2 emissions
• The enabling effect by a factor of five
• ICT as key enabler to reduce emissions in other
  sectors

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Green ICT covers all activities on Green of ICT
Green by ICT
Green of ICT
Green by ICT
CO2 reduction through convergence with ICT in
other industries
CO2 reduction of infrastructure and products in
ICT industry
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GREEN By ICT

• The opportunities where ICT could play a driving
  role include
• Smart grid
• Smart buildings
• Smart logistics
• Smart motor systems
• Dematerialisation

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DEMATERIALISATION
The substitution of high

carbon products and

activities with low carbon

alternatives gt Replacing face-to-face meetings

with
tele- and videoconferencing gt Remote working gt
Paper with email/online billing gt CDs with online
music

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SMART BUILDINGS

• Global building emissions responsible for 8
  total emissions in 2002 (3.36 GtCO2e) - 11.7
  GtCO2e if energy to run buildings is included.

• SMART BUILDINGS
• Technologies used to make the design,
  construction and operations of buildings more
  efficient, applicable to both new and existing
  property.
• Building management systems (BMS) run heating
  and cooling systems.
• Software to switch off PCs, monitors and lights
  when not in use.
• Improved building design for energy efficiency.

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SMART GRIDS

• Power sector responsible for 24 global
  emissions in 2002.
• Expected to be responsible for 14.26 GtCO2e in
  2020.

• SMART GRIDS
• Smart meters customer information on energy
  use
• Interactive energy generation
• Advanced grid management systems
• Demand management systems (dynamic demand)
• Reduce transmissions and distribution (TD)
  losses
• Integration of renewables

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ITU-T and Climate Change Setting the Standard

• FG on ICTCC concluded with 4 Deliverables in
  March 2009.
• Inputs from non-ITU members (e.g. academia) were
  also taken into considerations
• Mandate of SG5 was expanded at the last TSAG
  (28-30 April 2009)
• New SG 5 title Environment and climate change
• SG5 created a new WP 3/5
• All SGs examining impact of recommendations on
  climate change
• SGs developing standards for new energy efficient
  technologies
• E.g. SG 13 on Next Generation Networks
• NGN estimated to be 40 more energy efficient

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Universal charger

• ITU standardized-approval process for new
  Recommendation L.1000
• Delivers 50 reduction in standby energy
  consumption, eliminates 51,000 ton of redundant
  chargers, and cuts GHG emissions by 13.6 million
  ton CO2 annually
• Current version covers charger for mobile
  terminals but will cover other ICT devices in
  future

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ITU-T Building Knowledge on Climate Change

• ITU-T issued major Technology Watch Reports on
  Climate Change and positive impact of new
  technologies
• Next Generation Networks, Intelligent Transport
  Systems, etc.
• Organizing Major Symposia on ICT and CC
• 2008 Kyoto and London
• 2009 Quito and Seoul (virtual event)
• ITU-T pioneering energy efficient work methods
• Paperless meetings, on-line work tools, etc.
• ITU-T leading Dynamic Coalition on Internet and
  Climate Change as part of IGF