ACM Technology Policy Council
The Association for Computing Machinery’s global Technology Policy Council (ACM TPC) today released “ACM TechBrief: Computing and Climate Change,” a concise report outlining the energy consumed by the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and the climate impacts of the carbon emissions resulting from that energy consumption.
The Association for Computing Machinery’s global Technology Policy Council (ACM TPC) today released “ACM TechBrief: Computing and Climate Change,” a concise report outlining the energy consumed by the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and the climate impacts of the carbon emissions resulting from that energy consumption.
New York, NY, Oct. 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Association for Computing Machinery’s global Technology Policy Council (ACM TPC) today released “ACM TechBrief: Computing and Climate Change,” a concise report outlining the energy consumed by the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and the climate impacts of the carbon emissions resulting from that energy consumption. One of the report’s key findings is that computing can help mitigate climate change but must first cease contributing to it.
The TechBrief is the first in a series of short technical bulletins by ACM TPC that present scientifically-grounded perspectives on the impact of specific developments or applications of technology. Designed to complement ACM’s activities in the policy arena, the primary goal is to inform rather than advocate for specific policies. Topics under consideration for future TechBriefs include facial recognition, election security, smart cities, and encryption, among others.
The report points out that most analysts estimate that between 1.8% and 3.9% of global carbon emissions are attributable to information and communication technologies (ICT) activities. This makes the ICT sector’s carbon footprint comparable to, and by some estimates higher than, that of the aviation sector. And most worryingly of all, at a time when all sectors across the global economy are being told to reduce carbon emissions, computing’s carbon footprint is steadily growing.
The ACM TPC believes that now is an opportune time to release a report on this topic, as the energy demands of computing have grown exponentially in recent years. For example, the report notes that datacenters worldwide now use twice as much of the total global electricity supply as they did just 10 years ago. In particular, the “computational overhead” (resources needed to perform operations) for artificial intelligence applications increased an estimated 300,000 times between 2012 and 2018. Recent research indicates that the ICT sector may be responsible for one-third of global carbon emissions by 2050 if it does not decease carbon emissions in …….
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/acm-technology-policy-council-releases-160000489.html