European Union Digital Summit - Digital with Purpose Movement Launch Event

Good afternoon, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to express our support for the ‘Digital with Purpose Movement’ with its pledge to governments and policy makers to accelerate the realisation of the Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

I would like to congratulate my good friend and colleague Luis Neves and GeSI for this important initiative. I am very pleased to say ITU has had a long and successful partnership with GeSI, for many years now, starting with our advocacy for the use of information and communications technologies for climate change, through to promoting the wider role of ICTs to advance the SDGs.

Intersector collaboration, both public and private, is essential to achieve this, and ITU as the lead UN agency for ICTs, is committed to collaborating with all partners to achieve universal connectivity and the application of the technology to the achievement of a more sustainable world.

I recall when ITU published its first report on ICTs and Climate Change in 2007, I was continually being asked “what have ICTs, and ITU, got to do with climate change”. 

And I often think back to when I joined the GeSI Board in 2010 and our struggles to raise awareness of the benefits of ICTs for mitigation and adaptation at the UN climate change conferences. 

How satisfying it is to see today how far the world has come since then in recognising and acknowledging the importance of the technology for environmental sustainability. 

Environmental issues are now a major element of ITU’s work - ranging from smart cities to natural disaster risk reduction, e-waste and energy consumption. As a leading international standards making organisation, energy conservation and the sustainable use of the technology are a priority. ITU’s harmonisation of the use of the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits plays a significant role in monitoring our planet.

It is thanks to these observations that the new climate predictions released last week by the WMO show that temperatures will keep rising towards the critical 1.5-degree Celsius benchmark over the next five years. 

But if climate change is accelerating, so is today’s digital transformation. The digital technologies that have proved so essential since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, will be central to efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change and build back better. 

It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that this digital transformation fulfils its promise to deliver on the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and make sure it does so before it is too late. 

It is very encouraging to see the level of commitment to the pledge in the Digital with Purpose initiative.

As we look toward the Climate Change Conference in the UK in November, it is my hope that we can build on this commitment to pool our resources for the common good. I am sure that many of ITU’s 193 Member States and 900 Sector Members will be in support of the initiative.

So let us all commit to closer collaboration to work for a digital future accessible to all, so that everyone everywhere can benefit from a more sustainable world and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Agenda.

I wish the Digital with Purpose Movement every success!​

​