Automation and telepresence technologies could cut $900bn a
year from the world's energy bill.
Malcolm Johnson, director of the standardisation bureau at the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU), told Computer Weekly
that this saving was possible if technologies such as these were
extended across all industries.
"A single datacentre for a search engine company consumes as
much energy as a city like Geneva, which has 812,000 residents,"
Johnson said.
The IT sector, which produces 2.5% to 3.5% of the world's
greenhouse gasses, is addressing its own carbon issues by
developing equipment that uses less energy and runs at higher
temperatures, cutting the energy needed to cool it, he said.
High-speed communications networks need fewer switching centres,
which need cooling. They also make possible applications such as
home working and telepresence, which cut the need to travel, he
said.
Applied correctly, IT could help cut emissions in other sectors
by up to 40%. Key sectors where IT could be effective include
energy production, transport, construction and information
processing, Johnson said.
The ITU has developed a methodology for assessing the impact of
the information and communications sector on greenhouse gasses. It
hopes to have it accepted as a standard model for other industries
at the Copenhagen convention on climate change in November, said
Johnson.
The ITU also hopes that the convention will accept the ITU's
method of assessing the impact of IT on other sectors of business
in cutting their own greenhouse gas emissions.
The ITU showed how the use of IT could save energy in developing
the methodology. Contributors around the world have met 31 times,
28 of them in cyberspace, and produced the standard in just nine
months. An ITU standard usually takes years of face-to-face
meetings to agree, said Johnson. "This saved thousands of tonnes of
CO2," he said.