The digital economy needs to be treated with caution
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The recent outage via Microsoft which disrupted the world over a period of days is an example of how relying on digital technology can be dangerous.
A new report on the digital economy by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), stresses the need to take more seriously the negative environmental impact of the ever growing digital technology sector.
Bitcoin manufacture uses more power than Belgium
Some of its telling headlines are that it takes 800 kilos of raw materials to make a two-kilogram computer and the energy needed to mine bitcoins reached 121 terawatts last year, which is higher than the annual energy consumption of either Belgium or Finland.
UNCTAD revealed that estimates suggest that the digital sector is responsible for between 1.5 per cent and 3.2 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure similar to that of air and maritime transport.
It’s not just energy that’s being used, but vast amounts of increasingly scarce water resources are being used by companies such as Google and Microsoft to cool down data centres and those centres themselves use huge amounts of energy.
There is also the problem of using finite, often rare, minerals for the creation of electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones with the largest volume of such minerals being ripped out of the land in Africa, with little regard for damage to the environment or planning long term to create well-paid local staff to produce the very products that need the minerals.
According to the report, amidst current global crises, limited fiscal space, slow growth and high debt, developing countries should make the most of this opportunity through domestic processing and manufacturing.
How to manage the problem
The UNCTAD report says that in order to move forward sensibly, there should be an immediate move to focus on recycling, reuse and recovery of digital materials to reduce waste and environmental damage.
Other necessary measures include creating plans to use raw materials more efficiently and reduce overall usage.
Strengthen regulations, apply stricter environmental standards and rules to reduce the ecological impact of digital technologies.
Invest in renewable energy , support research and development of energy-efficient technologies and sustainable digital practices.
Promote international cooperation, encourage countries to work together to ensure fair access to digital technologies and resources, and address global issues of digital waste and resource extraction.
Hitting environmental sustainability goals
It concludes that whilst the digital economy is critical to global growth and development opportunities, we must pursue practices that lead us to a win-win space that does not run counter to our important environmental sustainability goals and climate change commitments.
