Copenhagen Climate Council is approaching as the climax of the ongoing battle for the global climate. The media are conveying a seemingly endless stream of stories on the topic. From climatologists predicting an icefree Arctic within the next 20 years to hardcore sceptics calling for more data evidence and better models to accept the hot fate of the Earth. Billions of dollars – entire industries – are at stake along with the global temperatures and cynicism fight against genuine concern.

Carbon dioxide along with other greenhouse gasses is our enemies. In Copenhagen governments will attempt to unite in the battle. The basic challenge is rather straightforward: Set an upper limit for global emissions of greenhouse gasses and commit countries individually to reduce current emission levels.

Unfortunately, not all countries – and politicians – agree on the urgency of the matter. Agreeing on a value for the upper limit will be a challenge in itself. To make things worse – even if the world could agree on an upper limit – the means to achieve this by committing to reductions will be subject to loud discussions; some countries will feel that other countries are better suited to carry the economic burden of emission reductions – after all we all depend on fossil fuels.

Therefore, to end successfully the Copenhagen meeting will also have to reach consensus on how to finance technology flow from rich countries to poor countries allowing the latter to meet requirements without too much social disruption. And, finally, methods for monitoring the actual emissions and thereby overseeing that requirements are met must also be put in place in Copenhagen.

In this environment IT may seem rather irrelevant, yet Green IT is often mentioned – both as a problem and as a solution.  As I have stated in previous posts I believe that IT ‘s potential as a solution dwarfs it’s role as problem. It does make sense to consider server virtualisation, low energy cooling, PC power saving mode and it does make a lot of sense to consider lifecycle issues – purchase, use and disposal of IT equipment.

It makes sense from a climate point of view; 60-70% of CO2 emissions from the lifecycle of a laptop stem from production – so prolonging the lifetime of a laptop has a significant impact on emission. It makes sense in terms of reducing traditional pollution (there’s a lot of heavy metals in the circuitry). And finally, very pragmatic, it is economically sound in the context of the individual business; investing in virtualisation has a very reasonable ROI.

Still, from a climate point of view IT constitutes 3% of the global CO2 emission – cement production worldwide accounts for 5%… Of course we must consider reductions in all sectors, but reducing IT related emissions will not save the planet!

Where Green IT does make a difference is when applied to substitute, control or improve efficiency of other CO2 producing activities. Housing related CO2 amounts to 60% of the total emission. As part of the jury for the Danish Green IT prize I was part in a decision to award the prize to Flex Control, a company developing ITY solution for remote climate control of rental summerhouses with the potential of significant CO2 savings. Imagine that IT could improve indoors lighting and heating effiency worldwide by 10% – that would cut global emissions by 6%. Double the potential of cutting all IT related emissions.

That may save the planet! Or at least prevent it from boiling!

So Green IT can make a difference. It may not save the whales, but that’s a whole different story…