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Deceptive Dilemma of Digitalized Decarbonization

General Sustainable Development Climate Change SDGs

Thursday, 20 October 2022

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Each hour of video conferencing, which is the average time for online meetings and classes in the university nowadays, emits 1 kilogram of Carbon dioxide. Online meetings are now becoming common features of not only University education but entering the bottom of the social pyramid in developing countries. Smart and educated farmers are negotiating the prices of agricultural produce in online meetings.

Digital Technology is now flowing in the veins of the professional and personal lives of youth all over the world. The number of connected devices like smartphones and sensors will be commanding the market of USD 6 billion by 2025. Most of these devices are related to Smart meters, Internet of Things (IoT) platforms and Cloud networking which would generate huge amounts of data. This data needs to be stored at data centres that generate heat and need to be cooled. As per IEA (International Energy Agency), data centres accounted for nearly 1% of the world's energy demand in 2019 just before COVID-19. Now in 2022, data centres are not only increasing in numbers but storing more and more data and emitting more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As per one projection technology industry will emit 10-14% of global GHG emissions by 2040. Considering today it contributes to just about 3%, it is a steep rise in emissions. And this projection does not take into account the disruptive development in technologies that are poised to enter all around us.

Here enters my technological dilemma: Google has just published a report that it had commissioned some time back with the help of experts. The report emphatically says how digital solutions are important enablers of affordable and cost-effective climate change mitigation at scale. The cause transforms into a solution!

The report says that 'Decarbonization happens faster in the most digitalized economies.' Europe's most advanced digital economies reduced their GHG by 25% between 2003 and 2019 and grew their economies by 30% in the same period. Europe's least digital economies also reduced their GHG in that period, but only by 18% while growing their economies by 18%".

The report certainly talks firmly about the positive aspects of digitalization. After reading the report, I found that the potential for digitally enabled decarbonisation is huge. For example:

Mega players like Microsoft and Google are aiming to run their data centres full-time on decarbonized electricity by 2030.
Three of Google's five European data centres (in Finland, Denmark and Belgium) already operate at more than 80% decarbonized electricity and two (Finland and Denmark)operate at around 90% decarbonized electricity.

The first part of my musings stamps digitalization as aiding carbonization. The second part raises a dilemma with Google's report that says digitalisation is powerful ( and only?) tool to accelerate and sustain decarbonization. Is there deception here?

The universities in the Smart Campus Cloud Network that promote ' learning by doing and accelerating by sharing ' are poised to carry out further practical research in their campus to place digitalization as a frontline to accelerate decarbonisation and support Google's findings.