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ITU event closes with green call to international community
Eco-design to reduce e-waste and enabling
policies highlighted
Geneva, 5 June 2012 – Participants at the
7th
ITU Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change have issued a
Declaration that encourages ICT manufacturers to make their products more
easily upgradable without need for replacing the entire device. The call to
promote a life cycle approach in the design of ICTs (eco-design) also means
better taking into account how components in a device can be recycled. Reducing
e-waste and providing incentives and encouragement for e-waste take back schemes
were just some of the issues included in the Declaration issued at the end of
the event on Friday, 31 May.
The Declaration adopted by the approximately 150 participants at the event
also called for enabling policies to encourage investment in smart technologies
and ICT based clean technologies (cleantech) as a way of promoting green growth
and sustainable development. In addition the support of ITU methodologies to
measure the impact of ICT and a recommendation to ramp up research and
development on the use of ICTs for monitoring, mitigating and adapting to the
effects of climate change are mentioned.
Specifically the Declaration calls for global leaders, public sector
officials, ICT and environmental experts and representatives from international
organizations, that will gather at the 2012 United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the 2012 United Nations Climate Change
Conference (COP18-CMP8), and the 2012 ITU World Telecommunication
Standardization Assembly (WTSA-12), to identify and agree on key priorities and
provide clear guidance on how to move the global green agenda forward through
the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
Malcolm Johnson, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau
(TSB) speaking at the event: “We very much hope that Technology Transfer
mechanism agreed in Durban at COP17 for implementation this year will encourage
ICT projects that help adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. The
key components for a successful strategy are a combination of policies and
regulatory incentives and standards that encourage the use of ICTs to combat
climate change at the international, regional, and national levels. Active
participation in international climate change discussions, and engagement in the
design of technology solutions and standards is essential.”
Hosted by Prompt and
co-organized with Industry Canada,
ITU’s 7th ITU Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change brought
together policy makers, representatives from ICT companies and civil society
from around the world to further advance the “green ICT” agenda by raising
awareness of the power of ICTs to aid in monitoring, mitigating and adapting to
climate change, tackling e-waste and highlighting the key role played by ICTs as
enablers in environmentally-sustainable economic development.
As the leading United Nations Specialized Agency for telecommunications and
ICTs, ITU plays a leading role in developing an integrated approach to the
significant role of ICTs in addressing climate change and in helping countries
implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
through the use of ICTs.
With ICTs now an intrinsic element of every economic sector, the need to
integrate ICT-based solutions into the environmental actions of each industry
sector has become essential. The symposium explored ways of achieving this
integration, and helped plot the course of ITU’s future work in the field.
The Declaration represents ITU´s ongoing contribution to World Environment
day which focuses this year on the theme of ’Green economy’. Through this
contribution ITU continues to promote the key role that ICTs play in the
transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient and socially inclusive green
economy”.
For more information, please contact:
Toby Johnson
Senior Communications Officer,
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Sarah Parkes
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information
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