Connections Transport & ICT 102667 ICT at COP21: Enormous Potential to Mitigate Emissions Doyle Gallegos and Junko Narimatsu 20% The transformational potential of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) was on display in Paris at the Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. ICTs—including the Internet, mobile phones, geographic information systems (GIS), satellite imaging, remote sensing, and data analytics—could Estimated reduce yearly global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction in annual 20% by 2030, thus holding them at their 2015 level. 1 global carbon emissions Moreover, ICT emissions are expected to decrease to by 2030 through 1.97% of the global total by 2030, from 2.3% in 2020, expanded application while emission reductions attributable to ICT will be of information and nearly 10 times greater than those of the ICT sector. communication ICTs are also critical for climate change adaptation, technologies providing vital tools for all phases of the disaster risk management cycle. Although the opportunities for ICTs to support the climate change agenda are enormous, much work remains in order to realize them. Governments of developing countries must be further encouraged to include ICTs in their national climate change policies. And the international development community will have to make significant efforts, particularly in low-income countries, to develop ICT infrastructure as well as the institutional capacities and skills to implement and sustain these solutions. By 2030, ICTs could eliminate the equivalent of 12.1 logistics, car sharing (e.g., Uber), and other ICT-en- billion tons of CO2 per year in five sectors—trans- abled solutions can save travel time and reduce fuel port (30% of the total reduction), manufacturing consumption. The Lagos Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), (22%), agriculture and food (17%), buildings (16%), supported by the World Bank, is a good example and energy (15%).2 Here are some of the ways: of a system embodying several of these strategies.3 “Disruptive” ICTs in transportation (such as driver- Transport (mobility and logistics): Electric vehicles, less vehicles) are expected to mature over the next traffic control, real-time route optimization, smart decade. 1 Smarter 2030, June 2015 (http://smarter2030.gesi.org/downloads/Full_report.pdf), a report by GeSI (Global e-Sustainability Initiative, an in- dustry group) presented at COP21. Those possibilities were explored at a number of ICT-centric COP21 sessions, including those hosted by the UN Global Pulse initiative (which in April 2015 had launched Data for Climate Action), the French Development Agency, the U.K.’s Department for International Development, and the Data-Pop Alliance, which was created by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the MIT Media Lab, and the Overseas Development Institute to promote the use of Big Data through collaborative research, capacity building, and community engagement. 2 The total exceeds the combined carbon footprint of the European Union and the United States (www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2015/mobility- report/ericsson-mobility-report-nov-2015.pdf). 3 http://blogs.worldbank.org/transport/lagos-bus-rapid-transit-system-decongesting-and-depolluting-mega-cities-0. DECEMBER 2015 NOTE 30 Manufacturing: Examples include virtual manu- two-thirds of the population residing in developing facturing, 3D printing (allowing customer-centric countries remains offline, and less than 10% of the production at a faster and more efficient pace), 940 million people living in the least-developed circular supply chains, and smart services. countries use the Internet.6 Agriculture and food: ICTs can help raise produc- The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9.c tivity and reduce food waste and are estimated is to “significantly increase access to information to also reduce water needs, potentially by 250 and communications technology and strive to pro- trillion liters per year by 2030. For example, farms vide universal and affordable access to the Internet in developing countries can monitor soil conditions in least developed countries by 2020.” Globally, by using intelligent sensors and send the data to the arrival of 5G Internet speeds in the near future irrigation systems, leading to efficient allocation of as well as the accelerating development of next- scarce water resources. generation access (NGA) networks are expected to enable productivity gains on a massive scale. These Buildings: Sensing devices linked to controls and will significantly advance the potential to attain applied to building energy management could SDG 9.c, benefiting climate change mitigation and reduce energy costs by $0.4 trillion per year by adaptation as well as health, education, agriculture, 2030. and gender equality. Energy: Smart grids driven by web-enabled sensor Greening the ICT sector itself will also be critical as networks in combination with big data and ana- data traffic continues to explode. In 2014, the In- lytics can predict electricity usage patterns with ternational Telecommunications Union established increased accuracy and modify output in response the new Connect 2020 agenda, which includes to immediate data rather than historic patterns.4 two ambitious targets directed at reducing the environmental footprint of the ICT sector by 2020: The use of ICTs in climate adaptation measures is reducing the volume of e-waste 50% and reducing becoming more routine. In Egypt, alerts for flash greenhouse gas emissions generated by the sec- floods are issued on the basis of rainfall forecasts, tor by 30% per device.7 The consolidation of data and Chile became the first developing country centers, the expansion of cloud-based services, to have a fully operational tsunami early-warning and innovative solutions such as liquid cooling will system that uses a satellite-based positioning become increasingly important to reduce energy system. After the April 2015 Nepal earthquake, required for ICT power. the efficiency of rescue efforts was boosted by tech volunteers in the OpenStreetMap community, The opportunities for ICT to support the overall who located more than 13,000 miles of roads and climate change agenda are enormous, and the 110,000 buildings within 48 hours.5 development community must continue to aggres- sively explore ways to raise awareness for using ICT Projects supported by the World Bank are employ- solutions to facilitate the greater provisioning of ing some of these technologies: this global public good. • In Samoa, GIS mapping is used to help identify important sections of the road network vulner- able to climate and weather impacts (a strat- egy also under way in a Belarus project). 4 The total energy footprint has started to decrease in OECD coun- tries with high ICT use (www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2015/mobility- • In Tonga, a drone for postdisaster and geospa- report/ericsson-mobility-report-nov-2015.pdf). 5 http://www.wired.com/2015/05/the-open-source-maps-that-made- tial mapping is helping assess storm damage rescues-in-nepal-possible. and plan recovery efforts. 6 https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFacts- Figures2015.pdf Critical ICT infrastructure and services are still 7 http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/climatechange/Documents/Publica- lacking, especially in low-income countries. Today, tions/Resilient_Pathways-E.PDF Connections is a weekly series of knowledge notes from the World Bank Group’s Transport & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Global Practice. Covering projects, experiences, and front-line developments, the series is produced by Nancy Vandycke and Shokraneh Minovi. The notes are available at http://www.worldbank.org/transport/connections. DECEMBER 2015 NOTE 30