Page 73 - SAMENA Trends - September-October 2020

ARTICLE SAMENA TRENDS

ARTICLE

Combating Climate Change with 5G

The telecoms industry is taking a lead
by addressing its own energy efficiency.
The cellular industry was the world’s first,
in 2016, to commit to achieving the UN
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
setting an industry goal of net-zero

emissions by 2050.

The planet is facing a climate emergency which, if not tackled
immediately, threatens every aspect of life. 5G is being deployed
at a time when energy efficiency is a matter of life or death,
and it can play a significant role in helping every industry to hit
sustainability goals by enabling them to transform their processes
and behaviour. Recent years have seen many governments and
international organisations – including within the MENA region –
initiate sustainability and climate protection programmes, many
with targets based on those contained in the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, agreed in Paris in 2016. To date,
77 countries and major sub-national economies have set net-zero
emission targets by 2050.

Government leadership is important, but not enough on its own.
Modern lifestyles have driven a sharp increase in energy usage,
85% of which was still based on fossil fuels in 2018. Use of
fossil fuels is one of the key factors driving higher emissions of Li Xiangyu (Spacelee)
greenhouse gas (GHG), which contribute to global warming. This, VP of Public Affairs and Communications
in turn, has multiple dangerous impacts on the environment and Huawei Middle East
on human life, such as natural disasters and the destruction of
human and animal habitats. GHG emissions rose by 1.5% per year
between 2008 and 2018, according to the United Nations (UN)
Emissions Gap Report 2019, and total GHG emissions reached
a record high of 55.3 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent
(GtCO2e) in 2018.

Every industry needs to define its own targets and a clear
roadmap to reach them. The telecoms industry is taking a lead by
addressing its own energy efficiency. The cellular industry was the
world’s first, in 2016, to commit to achieving the UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), setting an industry goal of net-zero
emissions by 2050.

73 SEP-OCT 2020