For the first time the OECD countries meet for specific discussions on ICT and the environment. Another sign of how ICT and climate is now part of the mainstream agenda. The agenda was a collection of different perspectives.
Many very interesting presentations and we are moving from a situation where almost all of the attention is on IT’s internal problems to more focus on the opportunities. Still it is interesting to see how difficult it is to move away from IT’s own emissions (2%) to the opportunity ICT have to help reduce emissions the rest of society (98%). People agree that the 98% should be the main focus, but then structures, responsibilities and funding seem to push people back into the 2% corner. It would be interesting if the time/resources spent in conferences like these where allocated so that ICT’s own emissions where given 2% time and the role for ICT to reduce emissions in the rest of society where given 98%. If speakers where to change the allocation of their time they should explain why they did this…
At the event I did a presentation where I presented the result from out report that will be launched next week, the 29th. “Outline for the first global IT strategy for CO2 reductions: A billion tonnes of CO2 reductions and beyond through transformative change”. The presentation was well received and I hope that the report can contribute to concrete projects that start to deliver so we fast achieve the first billion tonne and move further. It will be available on www.panda.org/ict
