May 2010 1

ITU-T WorkshopITU-T WorkshopICTs: Building the Green City of ICTs: Building the Green City of

the Futurethe Future

Arthur LevinChief, ITU-TSB

United Nations PavilionEXPO-2010, 14 May 2010

Shanghai, China

May 2010 2

Tackling Climate Change

Why ICTs?

Why ITU?

May 2010 3

Introduction to ITU

Founded in 1865, it is the oldest specialized agency of the UN system

Standards making is the first ITU activities

191 Member States, 780 private sector entities

HQ Geneva, 11 regional offices, 760 staff/80 nationalities

Named as one of the world’s ten most enduring institutions by Booz Allen

Five elected officials: Secretary-General Deputy Secretary-General Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau (BR) Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT)

May 2010 4

Plenipotentiary Conference

ITU Council

ITU-TWorld

Telecommunication Standardization

Assembly

ITU-RWorld/Regional

Radiocommunication Conference

RadiocommunicationAssembly

ITU-DWorld/Regional

Telecommunication Development Conference

GeneralSecretariat

TELECOM

ITU Structure

May 2010 5

ITU Membership

Member States: 191 governments

ITU-T, ITU-R, ITU-D Sector Members (565)

ITU-T Sector membership fee:31,800 CHF (= 20k EUR)

Associates (154): have right to participate in one study group

Associate membership fee:10,600 CHF (= 7k EUR)

Today, 95% of the work in ITU-T is done by the private sector (Sector Members and Associates)

May 2010 6

Without ITU-T standards you couldn’t make a telephone call from one side of the world to another.

Without ITU-T standards the Internet wouldn’t function.

ITU-T Recommendationsconnect the world…

May 2010 7

ITU-T in a Nutshell

Work (mostly) done in Study Groups (10 of them) + Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG)

ITU-T Product: Recommendations (= “standards”) Freely available to the public

Unique partnership of private sector (Sector Members) & government (Member States)

Truly global Consensus decisions Fast procedures, transparent procedures Common Patent Policy ITU-T/ITU-R/ISO/IEC

May 2010 8

ITU and Academia

1st Kaleidoscope event 2008: 140 contributions from

academic institutions from around the world

2nd Kaleidoscope event: Innovations for Digital Inclusion

September 2009, Mar del Plata, Argentina

3rd Event: Future Networks (India 2010)

Best papers proposed as new work

Published

May 2010 9

Did you Know?

Facebook alone uses an amount of capacity more than the entire Internet in 2000

It is estimated that the total electricity used in powering and cooling the 2 million servers of the 5 major search engines is around 5 gigawatts – which is the same amount of power used by the city of Las Vegas on the hottest day of the year

The Google data center in Oregon (US) consumes as much electricity each day as the city of Geneva

Data centers consumer more electricity than Argentina or the Netherlands

Whereas 80 Kg. of copper per line and per Km. were necessary in 1915 to carry a signal, only 0.01g of glass are sufficient today, a factor of 8 million

Between 16-50 Megatons of waste PCs and monitors are disposed of each year. This is enough to fill a container train of length equal to the circumference of the earth

While the average lifespan of a mobile phone is 5 years, 100 million Europeans will replace a phone this year after only one year of use

100 million customers receiving online phone bills would save 109,100 ton of CO2

May 2010 10

GLOBAL FRAMEWORK 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change

1997 Kyoto Protocol was adopted at COP-3

while Convention encouraged developed countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so

2001 Detailed implementation rules adopted at COP-7 in Marrakesh

Annex B (developed countries) to reduce GHG emissions in period 2008-12 (6 gases, notably CO2))

average overall reduction of 5.2% against 1990 baseline; national targets vary

EU-15 countries have a tougher target of -8%• aviation and shipping were excluded

• Developing countries: only to monitor and report GHG emissions

Protocol established Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)

allows parties to earn and trade emission credits through projects either in developed or developing countries

ICT not covered

May 2010 11

GLOBAL FRAMEWORK

2005 Kyoto Protocol came into effect for 177 countries; 189 now have ratified

2007 Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC clear link between GHG emission and climate change GHG emissions continue to grow as world continues to

industrialize

2012 First commitment period under Kyoto Protocol will expire

new framework is needed to deliver the stringent emission reductions the IPCC says are needed

May 2010 12

TOWARD A NEW GLOBAL FRAMEWORK

2007 COP-13 in Bali launched process for negotiation of the new Agreement

• established AWGLCA (Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action) to develop work program

2008 3 AWGLCA meetings: Bangkok, Bonn, Accra • **ITU is an observer

2009 Meeting of COP-14: Poznan, Poland• 3 more AWGLCA meetings; ITU sends input

2009 COP-15 meets in Copenhagen• Plenary “takes note” of the Copenhagen Accord• 12 paragraphs of text (started with 200 pages)• 100 countries have now signed up; but not China and India• Annex I commitments are all conditional on a new global agreement• Work on underlying Agreement continues

2010 COP-16 in Mexico