HomeBecome an AffiliateLinksSitemap

Select Language:

 

Don't Go There - Thoughts on Climate Change

The role of ICT in responding to climate change

Time to Wake Up

I want to establish a new organisation to unify the giants of technology to protect our children from climate change.
This generation is weak, lazy and stupid. I came to this conclusion after hearing a recording of President John F. Kennedy speak in 1965 about building an enormous rocket, to be made of materials not yet invented that would take humans to the Moon and back, within five years.
They did it in four. Yet 39 years later, much less than 1% of households in the world have a broadband videophone. So we keep on with this insane amount of travel. And it will destroy us in the floods and droughts spawned by climate change.
To solve this problems requires nothing more than leadership. Technology companies and their customers need to believe they can build a videophone with quality as good as TV news.
With that belief, and deployment at scale, this challenge can be met, and the battle won. Will you join us to build the global Confederation of Dematerialised Industries?
The opportunity to create a forum for key industries to voice their collective support for policies promoting dematerialized economic growth
Invitation to participate in the creation of a Confederation of Dematerialized Industries
1. The great majority of commerce in the world today is heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
2. The looming catastrophe of climate change compels nations to reduce these emissions by a very significant percentage.
3. New energy generation processes may be developed in 30 or 60 years that could permit a return to current levels of energy consumption.
4. The critical challenge for the 21st Century is therefore to massively reduce greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions and hold them down until a new technology emerges (nuclear fusion or some other).
5. In every country citizen perceptions of greater wealth through a growing economy has become the minimum requirement demanded of governments. Attempts to change this expectation may prove dangerous.
As Financial Times columnist Martin Wolff wrote on 18 December 2007:
"The biggest point about debates on climate change and energy supply is that they bring back the question of limits. If, for example, the entire planet emitted CO2 at the rate the US does today, global emissions would be almost five times greater. The same, roughly speaking, is true of energy use per head. This is why climate change and energy security are such geopolitically significant issues. For if there are limits to emissions, there may also be limits to growth. But if there are indeed limits to growth, the political underpinnings of our world fall apart. Intense distributional conflicts must then re-emerge - indeed, they are already emerging - within and among countries."
6. Economic growth can proceed without increased energy consumption when consumer expenditure migrates from physical goods to increased consumption of 'dematerialized' products. These are carried by electronic media and include:
- Films
- TV
- Games
- Music
- News
- Education
- Culture
- Literature
- People, live
7. To give a picture of the home in 2015 imagine first that a significant percentage of expenditure on cars and fuel has been transferred to the 'dematerialized' economy.
8. A billion people's homes in the industrialized world should have more than 20MB of high quality internet bandwidth both down and up.
9. A combination of high definition broadband (HDB) and video telephony would then permit people in their homes to:
- Avoid commuting: videophones left on during working hours to allow managers to 'be with' and therefore supervise home workers. Workers can also virtually 'sit together'.
- HDB videophones with true eye contact will permit friends and families to spend time together remotely and offer extraordinary potential for social and business networking.
- HDB will permit any film, TV or other piece of recorded media to be enjoyed in cinema quality.
- HDB allows for every school class and university lecture in the world to be recorded and watched by any number of people who may wish to study any thing at any time.
- HDB allows the infinite mass of content available to be edited and repackaged in any form by any person and made available on demand for a price.
- HDB video telephony allows for one billion broadcasters to emerge and educate, entertain and inform us all.
In this near future a young person might naturally want to be rich and famous, but would not necessarily assume that leaving their local area was the most effective first step to achieve their goal. We can also imagine that in this world all energy consumption will be monitored and managed by billions of embedded sensors ensuring high efficiency.
10. To me this future seems very exciting and alive with delightful possibilities. But under all circumstances, dematerialization is the necessary prerequisite for economic growth that is consistent with human survival.
11. If the reader accepts the points made above consider what a bright future lies ahead for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies and their content providers.
12. It is inevitable that companies pioneering dematerialization will grow turnover and profit whilst those associated with significant ghg production will lose revenues. The impact on profitability could be dramatic, see table below.
13. This paper suggests that the migration to a much more dematerialized economy is an unavoidable necessity over the next 20 years. However, if this change happens over 20 years or 5 years is a function of how quickly taxation and regulation of ghgs can be implemented at a sufficient scale to migrate expenditure to the dematerialized alternatives.
14. This paper recommends a single issue lobbying organization or company is established to stimulate, unite and direct lobbying efforts by the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies, as well as content providers who all stand to benefit dramatically financially from migration to a dematerialized economy.
15. The first target for such a company might be to promote investment in expanded procurement of travel substitution technology by government agencies. A secondary target would be to financially support campaigns for increased taxation and regulation of ghgs in all areas.

Relative impact of corporations

Below is a very rudimentary analysis of ghgs to revenues and profit based on Carbon Disclosure Project data. The table shows 12 companies from high emitting sectors contrasted with 12 companies from the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.
High emitters include: 4 Airlines, 3 Cement, 3 Steel and 2 Auto manufacturers. ICT: include 4 Hardware, 1 Software, 1 Broadcaster and 6 Network operators.

High emitters
	Sales $bn	Profit $bn	M/cap $bn	CO2 tonnes
Air France	28.5	1.59	11.49	15.5
British Airways	16.5	1.2	11.14	16.1
Japan Airlines	19.9	0.52	5.93	16.97
Singapore Airlines	13.34	1.66	13.37	13.1
Lafarge	22.5	1.82	26.28	89.2
Holcim	19.82	1.73	24.81	74.51
Cemex	17.59	2.23	25.54	50.47
Arcelor	54.08	3.99	41.28	74.7
Nippon Steel	33.45	2.93	45.9	61
Posco	26.76	4.24	32.45	62.8
General Motors	206.71	4.09	16.5	12.3
Ford	160.12	4.79	14.29	8.4
Total	619.27	30.79	268.98	495.05
ICT
	Sales $bn	Profit $bn	M/cap $bn	CO2 tonnes
Cisco	31.9	10.34	157	0.5
Intel	35.38	12.49	110	4
HP	94.08	10.16	106.82	1.54
IBM	91.42	18.95	140.39	2.67
Microsoft	46	17.94	267.62	0.46
Sky	8.03	1.06	19.1	0.03
Vodafone	56.99	22.83	142.77	1.3
BT	37.86	2.9	48.15	0.74
Bell Canada	15.06	1.7	20.66	0.28
NTT	91.99	4.26	70.41	3.19
NTT (mobile)	40.81	5.22	77.8	0.86
Swisscom	7.98	1.31	18.63	0.02
Total	557.5	109.16	1179.35	15.59

Key observations from the above table include:

1. The High emitters generate larger revenue.
2. BUT High emitters generate only 28% of the earnings of ICT
3. The High emitters have only 23% of the ICT market capitalization
4. BUT High emitters produce 32 times more CO2
5. Per tonne of CO2 High emitters earn $62, ICT earns $6,992
6. ICT produces 112 times more profit per tonne of CO2 than High emitters.

It follows that the ICT economy can grow far more safely than for example air, autos or construction.
Most importantly, ICT companies can double their revenues by building a low carbon economy through inceased taxation and regulation of ghg emissions.
The new organization, working title 'Confederation of Dematerialized Industries' could be either a not for profit trade association or private company.
The Confederation of Dematerialized Industries would offer members:
The principal forum to voice their collective views on the significant opportunities presented to the dematerialized industries in providing low energy economic development.
Technical and policy expertise to work to influence the shape of forthcoming national and international standards and legislation promoting a realistic response to climate change.
A platform to ensure policy makers at national and supra national level are aware of the issues and opinions of the dematerialized industries in support of the recommendations from the scientific community.
A media voice for the dematerialized industries where they are collectively able to say things individual companies might not want to say for fear of offending their customers.
Opportunities to share best practice to help eliminate waste and achieve sustainable improvements in quality, cost and delivery.
Help maximizing funding opportunities by accessing the wealth of national and supra national government funding available.
Marketing opportunities through participation in technology demonstrations.
Access to an economics resource that will ensure the members are kept abreast of the key economic, market and business opportunities stemming from responses to climate change.
Regular updates on progress with sector liaison with an enormous number of organizations, legislative bodies and government departments.
Paul Dickinson
Chief Executive
Carbon Disclosure Project
Telephone +44 (0) 7958 772864

40 Bowling Green Lane
London
EC1R 0NE
United Kingdom
www.cdproject.net