Page 27 - Turning digital technology innovation into climate action

Turning digital technology innovation into climate action

2.2 Frontier technologies and climate actions Chapter 2

The need to unlock this potential is urgent because if the Paris Agreement targets are to be met,
it is estimated that the world economy will have to reduce its carbon dioxide equivalent emissions
per dollar of income by 6.3 per cent per year until the year 2100. The good news is that some
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estimates show that already existing ICT solutions offer the potential to suppress 15 per cent of
current emissions – a potential that may grow with strategic and responsible adoption of frontier
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technologies (as outlined in Box 2).

Box 2: The potential of frontier technologies in addressing climate change

Frontier Technologies to Address Climate Change

Frontier technologies are new, innovative and disruptive technologies that offer some
potential to help identify, mitigate and, where possible, reverse the effects of climate
change. Leveraging these technologies to engineer new solutions to address climate change
represents an opportunity to accelerate efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement, as well as
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13.

The global proliferation of ICTs, for example, is part of the rising Internet of Things (IoT),
which the ITU has defined in its Recommendation ITU-T Y.2060 as, ‘a global infrastructure
for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and
virtual) things based on existing and evolving interoperable information and communication
technologies”. Big data is also an organic by-product of IoT due to the ability of machines to
generate, process and analyse large volumes of data at high speeds.

The cost affordability of IoT-enabled devices and IoT-based systems has the potential to be
of particular benefit to developing countries by opening up opportunities for advancement

26 Hernnäs, Helena. ‘ICT Impact on CO2 Emissions – a Macro Perspective.’ Ericsson, 9 Oct. 2018, www .ericsson .com/ en/
blog/ 2018/ 10/ ict -impact -on -co2 -emissions - -a -macro -perspective.
27 Bergmark, Pernilla. ‘Halving Global Emissions by 2030 through Exponential Climate Action and Digital Technologies.’
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 13 May 2019, www .itu .int/ en/ ITU -T/ climatechange/ symposia/ 201905/
Documents/ 3 _Pernilla _Bergmark .pdf.

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