Mr Chairman, excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues
It is a pleasure for me to have this opportunity to speak to you about ITU’s work towards a pollution-free planet, and the important role of information and communication technology (ICTs).
As UN Secretary-General Guterres said recently, “ICTs are a powerful tool to help us achieve each and every single Sustainable Development Goal.” ITU, as the UN specialized agency for ICTs, is promoting innovative solutions that can help us achieve the SDGs and a pollution-free planet.
An extensive study has estimated that ICTs can enable a 20% reduction of global CO2 emissions by 2030 through their application in the polluting sectors such as transportation, energy and buildings.
As we know cities already account for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions, which is why ITU launched the “United for Smart Sustainable Cities” initiative in partnership with UNEP and 14 other UN agencies and programmes. One objective is to give cities the tools to help measure their smartness and sustainability in line with the SDGs and we are working with over 50 cities world wide to test these KPIs. A number of reports are available on the ITU website including on e-governance initiatives, sustainability projects and financing models.
However, recognizing the exponential growth of the ICT sector, ITU adopted two bold targets four years ago to reduce its negative impact: one, to reduce the volume of e-waste (some 50 million tons a year) by 50% by 2020. I am pleased that this is a collective effort with UNEP in the framework of the Global Partnership on Waste Management, in particular by encouraging its recycling. Two, reduce greenhouse gas emissions per electronic device by 30% by 2020. This we are doing by including energy efficiency as a main goal in all our technical standards, standards ranging from massive data centres, to standards for chargers for mobile devices.
But we must also lead by example. ITU became climate neutral three years ago. For some years now all our meetings have been paperless, from small groups to conferences of over 3,000 delegates, cutting paper consumption by some 5 million pages a year, and most of our meetings provide for remote participation – over the last four years 2,500 meetings with remote participation of some 20,000 remote participants from 139 different countries.
The ITU membership of 193 Member States, 450 private sector companies, 150 universities, civil society and other regional and international organizations is determined to grasp the huge opportunities that ICTs have for social, economic and environmentally sustainable development. Information and communication technology is a powerful tool to help us achieve the SDGs and ensure that we are on the right track towards a pollution-free planet.
And so I encourage this Assembly to give due recognition to the significant potential of ICTs to help reach its theme – a pollution-free planet.
Thank you.