BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 16. The high-level roundtable on green digital actions was held within COP29, Trend reports.
According to Mukhtar Babayev, president of COP29 and Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, digital technologies play a pivotal role in our fight against climate change.
“Digital technologies offer powerful tools for climate monitoring, early warning systems, improving energy efficiency, and promoting circular economy principles.
At the same time, with the spread of digital tools, we must also recognize the environmental costs they bring. This includes increased energy consumption, emissions, and the growing problem of e-waste.
According to the World Bank, the information and communication technology sector is currently responsible for about four percent of global emissions. We are obliged to act to minimize this impact,” Babayev said.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan's Minister of Digital Development and Transportation, Rashad Nabiyev, stated that digital technologies play a key role in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, especially in areas such as climate monitoring, early warning systems, and building resilience to climate change.
“The ability to utilize data, artificial intelligence, and other digital tools offers unprecedented opportunities for climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, these opportunities place a responsibility on us to ensure that our digital transformation is not only sustainable but also inclusive. This is why we are assembled here today.
As we know, the growing demand for data processing, artificial intelligence, and connectivity is accompanied by increasing energy consumption, material use, and e-waste generation,” he said.
The secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, in turn, said that full support of the declaration of green digital action is needed.
“Our member states have realized that digital transformation and sustainability must go hand in hand. That is why they made the decision to make sustainable digital transformation one of the two strategic objectives of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Indeed, they are the driving force behind this initiative. And let's not forget that the fight against climate change is also at the heart of the UN Pact for the Future and its Global Digital Agreement. Of course, we are seeing promising moves from digital industry leaders, many of whom are also here today.
Technology companies are among the largest purchasers of renewable energy, and some are already fully utilizing electricity from renewable sources. At the same time, as shown in the ITU's “greening digital companies” report, the technology sector's ecological footprint continues to grow due to increasing global demand for equipment, network services, and data storage. On the issue of 'going green', the digital sector can and must do more. That is why we are here today to support the Green Digital Action Declaration at COP29,” she said.
To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened at the Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11. It is the largest event organized by Azerbaijan to date, and the first time in the region that it is being held in Azerbaijan.
Within COP29, the highest level event - the summit of world leaders on climate action – was held on November 12–13.
The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.
In addition to being a top priority that creates the conditions for action, creating climate finance will also help fulfill the 1.5°C pledge by bringing everyone together.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for “Conference of Parties” and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.
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