Carbon neutrality will trigger revolutionary change
A senior Huawei executive says the integration of the digital and energy worlds will improve energy efficiency and resource allocation worldwide.
Addressing a session of the Global Innovation Hub (UGIH) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) hosted by the UAE, Charles Yang, senior vice-president at Huawei, said opportunities brought about by carbon neutrality will trigger revolutionary technological and socio-economic change.
“We’re working to not just enhance the ICT [information and communication technology] sector via technological innovations, but also build innovative systems to help achieve the common goal of carbon neutrality,” he said.
Yang spoke at a UNFCCC UGIH session titled, “Innovative, Digitally Enabled Green Transition”. The panel sought to shed light on new ways of thinking and doing in the green transition, as well as new cases that have emerged and opportunities for collaboration that could be leveraged.
Yang cited several Huawei innovations that lowered ICT’s carbon footprint. These included fully liquid-cooled supercharging terminals that are able to charge electric vehicles at the rate of one kilometre per second; the world’s second-largest photovoltaic plant in Qinghai, China where Huawei helped complete grid connection; and Huawei’s contribution to powering the world’s first 100% renewables-powered city as part of the Red Sea Energy Storage project in Saudi Arabia.
Mobile operators will also be able to lend a hand in producing energy, he said. “If they could leverage the 10 million mobile base stations globally and become energy producers, that will significantly reduce carbon emissions.”
For Jeffrey Sachs, president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, co-operation is key to enable the green transition and sustainable development. “We need co-operative approaches, we need great companies like Huawei that provide the technologies, and then we need solutions to scale them up.”
Referring to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Mohan Munasinghe, former vice-chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, said digital technology is both part of SDG 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and the key to SDG 13 (Climate action).
“All of the goals have to be dealt with in an integrated way. You cannot deal with carbon neutrality and climate by itself,” he said, adding: “Digital technology supports inclusive green technologies, promotes industrial infrastructure that increases economic activity… and will lead us to eco-civilisation in the 21st century.”
Alexandre Reis Siqueira Freire, a commissioner of Brazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel, provided a case in point. Speaking at the same panel, he introduced the sustainable and integrated Amazon programme, or PICE, which consists of 11 fluvial optical fibre backbone networks with nearly 9 000km of extension.
The programme has benefited more than four million inhabitants in Brazil, Freire noted, adding that “the development of advanced telecommunication infrastructure in the Amazon region shall promote the integration of the communities and digital economy.”
