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.