Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released on April 10, 2008, a report prepared by the ministry's Study Group on ICT Policy for Addressing Global Warming. Since its creation in September 2007, the study group has been discussing how to deal with global warming in the domain of information and communication technologies (ICT). The group's final report was based on these discussions and public input.

While the ongoing development of ICT contributes to economic growth and increased convenience for people, there is concern that the expanding use of ICT devices with more sophisticated functions -- which enables networking of virtually all electronic devices and terminals – may be resulting in increased energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Therefore, the group strongly recommended that any new ICT policy should include components to address global warming, especially in view of energy saving. At the same time, however, ICT is able to contribute positively to dynamic CO2 reductions in every aspect of social and industrial areas, because it can dramatically improve economic efficiency in areas such as production, logistics, and consumption. It may also be employed to realize alternate transportation systems and mitigate traffic congestion.

There is an expectation that businesses utilizing ICT for environmental solutions will continue to expand globally, which should lead to strengthening Japan's international competitiveness. Under such circumstances, the report concludes, the use of ICT is expected to promote international standardization of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of CO2 reductions, as well as the concept of CO2 emissions intensity.

http://www.soumu.go.jp/joho_tsusin/eng/

Posted: 2008/09/28 12:17:31 AM

TAG Energy , Global warming , Government , Other