Saturday 26 January 2008

Historic event in Davos when the world leaders in IT tackle climate change

It is not often when you feel that you see something really important happen when it actually happens. A few times I have felt this and usually it has been quite dramatic, such as the creation of the Kyoto Protocol in Japan, when the negotiations closed with most people close to collapse after intensive negations or when world trade moved from a technical issue to the public domain in Seattle as the WTO negotiations broke down with demonstrations outside.

Less dramatic, but with potentially more significant implications, was the agreement among world leading ICT companies that they want to “establish itself as a leading contributor that sees reduction of CO2 as a driver for innovation and profit. It would also allow the sector to claim a leadership role as a winner in a low carbon economy.

If this happens this could mark a threshold as we try to move towards a low carbon economy. Spending time with Simon Mulcahy, Randal Krantz, James Tee and other from the WEF team was a pleasure, the discussions with leading thinkers from all walks of life inspiring, and the dinner I moderated gave me hope for the next step.

Below are parts of the text that was discussed in Davos. I hope to do what I can do to turn this from word into action. The paperI brought to Davos, , From coal power plants to smart power plants at the speed of light , is available here, close to 5meg and with pages ranging from A4 to A2...)

UPDATE: The official documents from WEF in Davos are available to download here.