Rome event highlights importance of ICTs for climate change

ITU, together with the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, is organizing the first Green Standards Week from 5 to 9 September in Rome, Italy. Hosted by Telecom Italia, the cluster of workshops that make up the event will focus on raising awareness of the importance of using ICT standards to build a green economy and combat climate change. Full remote participation will be made possible with video, streamed audio and the ability to submit questions online via a moderator.
A High-Level Segment (HLS) will provide Ministers and senior representatives from the ICT industry with an opportunity to exchange views on how ICTs can help in the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the run-up to Durban (COP-17) and in preparation for the Earth Summit Rio +20, to be held in 2012. The HLS will aim to set transparent policy objectives and targets to measure and improve government green ICT strategies and standards, including ICT-enabled applications across the economy.
The first workshop will focus on methodologies for environmental impact assessment of ICT, and will examine work underway to measure the impact of ICTs on climate change, and how to standardize the way to calculate the reduction of GHG in ICT operation. This workshop will be jointly organized with the European Commission. A second workshop will look at moving to a green economy through ICT standards, exploring how ICTs can help to address climate change and build a green economy, and shedding light on standards, policies and best practices. This workshop will be jointly organized with Telecom Italia and will be opened by the Italian Minister of Economic Development, Paolo Romani.
The third workshop in the series will focus on using submarine communication networks to monitor the climate and provide tsunami warnings. It aims to encourage the development of new technologies and standards and to explore business opportunities for telecommunication companies to become active players in monitoring climate change. This workshop will be jointly organized by ITU, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary General, ITU: “UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has put sustainability right at the top of the agenda for the United Nations in 2011. One problem we face is that while lip service is paid across the planet to the concept of sustainability, there is still surprisingly little action being taken. The main reason, I believe, is that the economic case for sustainability has not in fact been made convincingly – and here, the ICT sector and standards have a powerful potential role to play.”
Green Standards Week, which is sponsored by Huawei, Research in Motion, Alcatel Lucent and Microsoft, will bring together leading specialists in the field, from top policy-makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and others. It is open to participation by the press.

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