|
Through enabling other sectors to reduce their emissions, the ICT industry could reduce global emissions by as much as 15 per cent by 2020-a volume of Carbon dioxide emission (CO2e) five times its own footprint in 2020  |
Every decade is benchmarked by an important event or happening. Maybe this present decade can be epitomized for the historic event of rising of Barack Obama to one of the most powerful posts of the present era, i.e. to the presidency of United States of America. Now this is the obvious part of the story. The latent or the hidden part of the story lies in telling the tale as to how did he rise to this position? Maybe because he was thinking man with a sound agenda whose fundamental issues struck a chord with the not so foolish democratic American Citizenry. If looked at very closely, Obama’s agenda pre as well as post his appointment emphasised greatly on ICT application as well as Green IT application. Very recently according to a news article in a reputed print media Obama has stratergised a $825-billion stimulus plan which has called for $37 billion spending in three hi-tech areas: $20 billion to computerise medical records, $11 billion to create smarter electrical grids and $6 billion to expand high-speed Internet access to rural and undeserved communities.
And this is not the case only with U.S. but also Europe as well as India, are fast catching up with this movement towards prioritizing ICT adoption and Green IT innovations. Can these prioritised steps in the current times of recession be seen as a step towards addressing the needs of connectivity and communication alone? No there is a horizon beyond. And that horizon is that of addressing the issue of reduction of CO2 emission through ICT applications and innovation. Global eSustainability Initiative’s (GeSI) recent Smart 2020 report indicates that “Through enabling other sectors to reduce their emissions, the ICT industry could reduce global emissions by as much as 15 per cent by 2020
