DOCUMENT #:
GSC15-PLEN-44
FOR:
Presentation or Information
SOURCE:
ITU
AGENDA ITEM:
Plenary 6.8
CONTACT(S):
ahmed.zeddam@orange-ftgroup.com
ICT and the environment
Ahmed Zeddam,
Chairman, ITU-T SG5
Global Standards Collaboration (GSC)
GSC-15
Highlight of Current Activities: ITU-T
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ITU-T SG5 Lead Study Group on ICTs and climate change:
• Recent ITU-T SG5 meetings
 Oct. 2009: SG5 meeting & JCA on ICT&CC
 Jan. 2010: WP3/5 meeting & JCA on ICT&CC
 April 2010: SG5 meeting
 Nov.-Dec. 2010: SG5 meeting New
• Contribution to Joint ITU-T/ISO IEC JTC 1 Leadership meeting
Work on E-waste and recycling
• Recommendation L.1000 (approved in March 2010)
• Universal charger solution for mobile terminals
• The first ITU-T Rec. on ICT&CC
• Work on L.1000 phase 2 started
Work on Methodologies : L.method. general principles (Oct 2010)
Work on Energy efficiency : Recommendation on Power feeding systems (2011)
Participation in UNFCCC process including COP-16
• Promotion of the role of ICTs in reducing GHGs
ITU-R and ITU-D ’s activities on climate change
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Highlight of Current Activities: ITU-R
As the steward of the global framework for spectrum, ITU-R:
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Provides radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits for
applications (space and terrestrial) employed in climate
monitoring and climate change prediction
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Develops international treaty level standards for
non-interference operation of radiocommunication systems
involved in climate monitoring and mitigation of negative
impact of climate change
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Carries out studies (through ITU-R Study Groups) for
development of new wireless technologies
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Develops World-wide standards (ITU-R Recommendations)
Facilitates the introduction and operation of modern radio
technologies and systems with low-energy consumption
Assists administrations in implementing radio systems by
analyzing compatibility between new and existing systems
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See ITU-R Web page “Radiocommunications and Climate Change” at:
http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/index.asp?category=information&rlink=climate-change&lang=en
Highlight of Current Activities: ITU-D
 New Questions
• ITU-D SG1, Q24/1: Strategies and policies for the proper disposal
or reuse of ICT waste material
• ITU-D SG2, Q24/2: ICT and Climate Change
 E-environment Toolkit for policymakers gives principles and
guidelines for the development of applications and services
in the area of the environment.
 Will help countries to assess the contribution that ICTs can
make to reduce GHG emissions
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Strategic Direction
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Leader role on methodologies
 Work on the methodologies for the evaluation of energy impact and GHG
emissions has gained much visibility and generates strong expectations from
many actors, such as the EC and the UNFCCC, which plan to rely on it and use
it in the near future
• Recommendations development plan:
 Overview umbrella Rec. (Target: 2010)
 Methodology for ICT goods and services (Target: 2010)
 Methodology for ICT projects (Target: 2012)
 Methodology for ICT in organizations (Target: 2011)
 Methodology for ICT sector in countries (Target: 2012)
Coordination activities through JCA on ICT&CC
• Coordination with SGs within ITU-T/R/D
• Promote collaboration with other organizations : ISO, IEC, GeSI, ETSI, EC,
OECD, UNFCCC, UNEP, WIPO, UNIDO, etc.
• Invitation of non-member experts and/or organizations
• Next Meeting to be held on 29 September 2010
Attract general interest from wider scope of people through symposia and other
events
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Challenges
 Since "ICT& the Environment" is broad in scope,
collaboration with other bodies is indispensable to
progress the work effectively without duplication
• Multiple organizations are working on ICT & CC such as
on universal charger and methodologies.
 Expertise from other organizations helps the work
 Non standards organizations are also working
 Expectation for quick development is strong
• We are expected to work even faster
 Partnership between ITU, GeSI and WBSD (World
Business Council for Sustainable Development)
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Next Steps/Actions (1/2)
 Acceleration of the ongoing work using interim F2F
meeting, e-meeting, etc.
• Q18: Methodologies (Overview umbrella Rec. and Recs in 4 major
areas)
• Q19: Efficient power feeding system (Higher voltage DC power
supply within a telecommunication office, datacenter, etc.)
• Q21: L.1000 phase 2, e-waste, recycling of rare metals, copper
cables and optical fibers
 Promotion of collaboration and coordination
• JCA on ICT & CC
• Invite relevant organizations or experts
• Partnerships and others ways?
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Next Steps/Actions (2/2)
 4th Meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Internet &
Climate Change (16 September 2010, Vilnius, Lithuania) during
the next Internet Governance Forum
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DCICC: is a body committed to moderating the environmental impact of the Internet,
to seeking new ways to embrace the power of the Internet for reducing greenhouse
gas emissions worldwide, and to enabling transformation in line with the objectives
set and to be set under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC). New
 5th Symposium on ICTs and the Environment & Climate
Change (2-3 November 2010, Cairo, Egypt)
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Topics to be discussed will include: adaptation to climate change, e-waste, costeffective ICT technologies, methodology of environmental impact assessment of ICT
and financing of climate change solutions.
Outcome: The symposium will issue the “Cairo Road Map”, a set of
recommendations for action in relation to ICTs, the Environment and Climate
Change. New
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Supplementary Slides
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ITU-T & Climate Change
WTSA Resolution on ICTs & Climate Change:
The World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly 2008 (WTSA-08) adopted
Resolution 73, in which Member States recognized the important of action to
address climate change, the important role that standards can play and requires all
new ITU-T standards (Recommendations) to be checked against energy saving
and environmental criteria.
Policy & Technology Watch:
Through its Policy & Technology Watch function, ITU-T has issued a series of
briefing papers relevant to climate change, on the topics of: ICTs and climate
change; telepresence (high-performance videoconferencing); remote collaboration
tools; intelligent transport systems (ITS); NGNs and energy efficiency; distributed
computing: utilities, grids & clouds; and batteries for portable ICT devices .
ITU-T & Climate Change
Ongoing & Upcoming projects
 Collaboration with the Global e-Sustainability Initiative
(GeSI)
• TSB Director is a member of the GeSI Board
• Collaboration in the Public Policy, e-Waste & Energy Efficiency
Working Group
 Collaboration with ICT Industry & UN Agencies
• Organization of symposia in developing countries on energy
efficiency, e-waste, cost-effective ICT technologies, methodology of
environmental impact assessment of ICT and financing of climate
change solutions.
• Case studies & Background papers
• Guidelines for an International Framework for Green Corporate
Social Responsibilities Policies (to be jointly developed with
BlackBerry, Telefonica, Alcatel Lucent, UNIDO, ect.)
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ITU-T & Climate Change
Focus Group on Smart Grid:
In the building sector, ICTs can help manage smart buildings that power themselves
and then feed energy back into the electricity grid. Smart grids will drive a
decentralized system of energy production, which will put consumers in better
command of their electricity use and pave the way for dramatic improvements in
energy efficiency and renewable energy usage.
ITU-T Focus Group on Smart Grid (FG Smart) was established further to ITU-T
TSAG agreement at its meeting in Geneva, 8-11 February 2010.
The Focus Group will, from the standardization view points:
• identify potential impacts on standards development
• investigate future ITU-T study items and related actions
• familiarize ITU-T and standardization communities with emerging attributes of
smart grid
• encourage collaboration between ITU-T and smart grid communities
The next meeting of the Focus Group will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1115 October 2010 NEW
ITU-T & Climate Change
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS):
ITS can clear our cities of debilitating pollutants and traffic jams, including through
GPS-enabled traffic systems and intelligent ambient lighting. ITS can also be
applied to public transport to respond more efficiently to customer needs and
provide the means for electric cars to act as distributed energy storage in network
downtime.
In this cross-over area of ICTs and transport, ITU hosts an annual workshop to
highlight the very latest developments in the field: the Fully Networked
Car@Geneva Motor Show.
Next Generation Networks:
On-going standardization work on Next-Generation Networks (NGN) is being conducted
through the NGN Global Standards Initiative. A study has estimated that NGNs could reduce
energy requirements by up to 40 per cent compared with today’s networks through a
combination of reduced number of switching centres, more modern equipment with multiple
power modes (e.g., VDSL2+), reduced requirements for air-conditioning, support for advance
services, and more efficient routing of traffic.
ITU-T & Climate Change
ITU-T SG 16 Multimedia coding, systems and applications
ITU-T SG 16 is of particular importance in terms of standards for remote
collaboration, such as the H series of ITU-T Recommendations on audiovisual and
multimedia systems, including video-conferencing, which provide a means for
people to collaborate at a distance without needing to travel. A new ITU standard
called the Advanced Multimedia Subsystem (AMS), which will facilitate the next
generation of remote working technologies, is in the works.
ITU-T SG 15 (Optical transport networks and access network
infrastructures) :
ITU-T SG 15 develops Recommendations on, inter alia, environmental and safety procedures
for outside plant, including the recycling of copper and optical cables materials.
ITU-T SG 15 has prepared a technical paper (“Energy-saving checklist for standardization
activities”) investigating ways to reduce the power consumption of telecommunications
equipment. The widespread availability of broadband access is facilitating the wider use of
telecommuting. The paper was adopted at the February 2008 meeting.
ITU-T & Climate Change
Raising Awareness:
ITU-T coordinated the organization of ITU Symposia on ICTs and Climate Change,
which have taken place in Kyoto, 15-16 April and in London 17-18 June 2008, in
Quito, Ecuador, on 8–10 July 2009, as well as a virtual conference in Soul, Korea
on 23 September 2009. The results have fed into relevant meetings such as the
OECD ministerial, the G8 summit in Japan, the UNFCCC and in particular WTDC10.
Resources on ICTs and Climate Change:
A “Resources on ICTs & Climate Change” website which provides references to external
resources: background papers, additional information, statistics, and examples, that cover the
positive and negative impact that ICTs have on the climate is available at:
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/climatechange/references.html
Calendar of Events
A Climate Change Calendar of Events is available at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/climatechange/
ITU-R and Reduction of CO2 Emissions
RADIO AS A CLEAN TECHNOLOGY
ITU Regional Radiocommunication Conference 2006 (RRC-06) involved
120 countries, and developed a new digital broadcasting Plan GE06
which envisages significant reduction (by almost 10 times) of transmitter
power and reduction of the number of transmitters (due to the
possibility of transmitting several TV and sound programmes in one
channel). Taking into account that there are roughly one hundred
thousands transmitters in these countries with power of up to 100-150
kW each, most of them operating 24 hours a day the energy savings will
be very important!
ITU-R Study Group 5 has developed the ITU-R “Intelligent Transport
System” - Handbook on Land Mobile (including wireless), Volume 4,
which describes the use of radio technologies for minimizing
transportation distances and cost with the positive effect on environment
and on the use of cars as an environment monitoring tool to measure air
temperature, humidity, precipitation, with data sent through wireless
links for weather forecasting and climate control.
ITU-R and Climate Change Monitoring
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World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRCs) analyze spectrum
requirements and allocate radio frequency spectrum for
radiocommunication systems and radio based applications employed
for environment and climate monitoring including weather forecasting,
natural disaster prediction, detection and mitigation.
ITU-R Study Groups, decisions of the Radiocommunication Assemblies
and the treaty status decisions of the World Radiocommunication
Conferences provide necessary support for the development and
operation of different systems involved in climate monitoring, weather
and disaster prediction, detection and relief such as:
- weather satellites that track the progress of hurricanes and typhoons
and weather radars for tracking tornadoes,
thunderstorms, and the effluent from volcanoes
and major forest fires;
-radio-based meteorological aid systems that
collect and process weather data;
- different radiocommunication systems (satellite
and terrestrial) used for dissemination of
information concerning different natural and
man-made disasters.
Measuring sea level by a radio remote sensor
from satellite with precision of 2-3 cm
ITU-R and Climate Change Monitoring
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- WRC-07 and Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-07) adopted a number
of Resolutions on studies related to remote-sensing, which is a vital
component in the science of climate change.
- ITU-R Recommendations on radiocommunication systems and radiobased applications operating in Earth-exploration satellite,
meteorological-aids and meteorological satellite services, today provide
most of data for the Global Observing System (GOS) and Global Climate
Observing System (GCOS).
- ITU-R Study Group 7 (Science services) in cooperation with the World
Meteorological Organization produced WMO and ITU Handbook “Use of
Radio Spectrum for Meteorology” providing information on development
and a proper use radiocommunication systems and radiobased technologies for environment observation, climate
control, weather forecasting and natural and
man-made disaster prediction, detection and mitigation.
Published on ITU-R Web page at:
http://www.itu.int/publications/publications.aspx?lang=en&media=electronic&parent=R-HDB-45-2008
ITU-R and Adaptation to Climate Change
World Radiocommunication Conference 2007 (WRC-07):
- analyzed the results of ITU-R studies and proposals of ITU
Member States and allocated additional spectrum for
radiocommunication systems involved in climate monitoring and
disaster prediction, detection and relief.
- invited ITU to carry out studies to carry out studies related to
further development of these systems.
-adopted Resolution 647 (WRC-07) “Spectrum management
guidelines for emergency and disaster relief
radiocommunication” requesting the Radiocommunication
Bureau (BR) to establish a database of currently available
frequencies for use in emergency situations, which are not
limited to those listed in Resolution 646 (WRC-03).
This Resolution also urges administrations to provide the
relevant up to date information concerning their national
frequency allocations and spectrum management practices for
emergency and disaster relief radiocommunications operations.
ITU-R and Adaption and Mitigation
ADAPTATION (continued)
Radiocommunication Assembly 2007 (RA-07):
-approved Resolutions ITU-R 53 and 55 instructing all ITU-R Study
Groups to carry out studies on the use of radiocommunication in disaster
prediction, detection, response, mitigation and relief.
-MITIGATION
In many cases, when disaster strikes the “wired” telecommunication
infrastructure is significantly or completely destroyed and only
radiocommunication services can be employed for disaster relief
operation (especially radio amateurs and satellite systems). ITU-R’s
Study Groups have developed Recommendations, Reports and
Handbooks related to the use of radiocommunications for mitigation of
negative effects of climate change, natural and man-made disasters.
Mitigation of the negative effects of climate change is another important
area of the ITU Radiocommunication Sector activities.
See ITU-R Web page “Emergency Radiocommunication” at:
http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/index.asp?category=information&rlink=emergency&lang=en
ITU and UN Delivering
As One on Climate Change
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ITU is contributing to the effort of the UN system to
“deliver as one” to address climate change and is taking the
necessary steps to deepen the global understanding of
the relation between ICTs and climate change.
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Read the Report: "Acting on Climate Change: The UN
System Delivering as One"
ITU is co-facilitator in issues related to WSIS Action Line
C7: e-environment
Side events and press conference in Copenhagen with Mr. Ban Kimoon, UN Secretary-General in Copenhagen in December 2009
Ongoing Collaboration with UNEP, WIPO and UNIDO
On 5 June 2010, ITU together with UNEP and other partners
celebrated the World Environment Day
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ITU and UNFCCC
 Ongoing role in UNFCCC process
• Promotion of role of ICTs in reducing GHGs
 Side events and press conference in Barcelona
and Copenhagen
 Partners: WIPO, GeSI, WWF, WMO, OECD,
UNFCCC, Analysis Mason, Cisco, Microsoft, NTT,
Government representatives from Japan, Ecuador, UK,
etc.
 ISeeT Kiosk – Daily briefings from high level ICT
business people
 High level meetings
 ITU, partner of the Nairobi Programme
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Related Links
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ITU and climate change
http://www.itu.int/themes/climate/
ITU-T and climate change
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/climatechange/
ITU-T Study Groups
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/index.html
ITU events on climate change:
http://www.itu.int/themes/climate/meetings.html
ITU Symposia on ICTs and Climate Change http://www.itu.int/ITUT/worksem/climatechange/
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