DIGITAL INNOVATION
With governments and operators agreed on the need to drive down carbon emissions , the focus now falls on digital technology to raise efficiencies and meet targets
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W ith the vaccine roll-out providing the prospect of an eagerly awaited solution to the COVID-19 crisis in 2021 , attention is now turning to the other pressing global issue of the day : climate change , and meeting net-zero emission targets .
Despite the pandemic dominating the agenda , many of its knock-on effects , from pollution to fossil fuel consumption , have focused minds back on the primacy of green energy . Internet and videoconferencing services , which boomed as we all worked from home and cut back on travel , fostered a sharp drop in emissions , estimated to be between 4-7 percent on 2019 levels .
But given residential energy use accounts for roughly 20 percent of Greenhouse Gas emissions in the United States – rising to 40 percent in the UK , where heating is the biggest contributor to household emissions – inherent pressures on energy consumption , and the planet ’ s finite resources , remain .
FEBRUARY 2021