Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and ... - ITU

• Smart grids – which would be of most benefit to countries such as India where reductions in emissions
could be as high as 30 per cent.
According to the Smart 2020 report, the use of ICTs to mitigate emissions in other sectors can be shown to
reduce emissions globally by up to seven times the emissions arising from the energy consumption of the
ICTs themselves. Therefore, a priority for investment should be infrastructure that will enable mitigating
technologies such as videoconferencing to be deployed, rather than investment in infrastructure such as
road transport. Major investment decisions, such as expansion into rural areas, need cost saving
considerations such as maximising shared resources where coverage is non-existent.
Suggested action: The EPA and MoC should investigate the use of ICTs to mitigate emissions in other
sectors to find out if the seven-fold savings of the Smart2020 report are applicable to Ghana, and
whether speeding up investment in telecommunications would bring economic and emissions benefits
more quickly than similar investment in other infrastructure, such as road and rail.
Figure 7 reminds us that ICT can have both positive and negative effects on the environment. There will be
an increased environmental load caused by the ICT devices themselves, including increased consumption of
energy and natural resources and generation of e-waste. Therefore, it is important that both the positive
and negative impacts are quantified before going ahead with deployments such as a new broadband
infrastructure.
Figure 7. Environmental aspects of ICT (weighing scale illustration) 108
Specific examples of how the roll out of a broadband infrastructure could reduce GHG emissions in other
sectors are given in the following sections.
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