Ministerial Roundtables 34 Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. It seems likely that human activities are accelerating the rapid warming of the planet, partly through the release of greenhouse gases (GHG). 2010 was one of the warmest years on record. Human activities may also be interfering with the planet’s natural mechanisms for responding and adapting to this change. Radical fresh thinking is required to tackle this problem. The pervasive uptake of ICTs can both contribute to the problem and to the solution. Establishing standards for energy-efficient ICT equipment could leverage and mitigate carbon emissions across all sectors including health care, power and financial sectors. Will the move to cloud computing entail greater or reduced carbon emissions? Where should server farms be located so as to cause minimum environmental impact? And what about the waste from billions of obsolete mobile phones and computers? This Ministerial Round Table debates how ICTs could positively impact on this challenge. It considers how industry and government can work together to promote sustainable ICTs. Top policy-makers share experience and best practices of how policy can guide the use of ICTs to combat climate change, and how ITU can contribute to this effort. Wednesday 26.10.2011 11:00-12:30 LabSpace #1 ICTs and Climate Change Ministerial Roundtable Session For decades, significant parts of the spectrum have been used to deliver analog television to homes. In a changing landscape, as cable and satellite TV, and more recently IPTV, deliver more choice, the popularity of terrestrial TV has diminished. Digital TV offers better quality and new services and uses the frequency spectrum more efficiently. In addition, most digital TV standards allow the implementation of single frequency networks (SFN), enabling reuse of the same spectrum over much larger areas, further increasing spectrum efficiency. Maintaining analog networks is becoming impossible to justify in economic terms for broadcasters. The transition to digital TV has started in many countries, and completed in others. The digital switchover should be complete across the EU by the end of next year, with developing countries hoping to complete the transition before 2020, freeing up chunks of the spectrum. This “digital dividend” could be used for new broadcasting services (High Definition, 3D and mobile TV) or shared with other compatible services. This Ministerial Round Table will, by comparing national and regional experience, explore the opportunities and costs of managing the transition to digital television. Wednesday 26.10.2011 09:00-10:30 LabSpace #1 The Transition to Digital Television and the Digital Dividend Ministerial Roundtable Session