I continue my short series of telecom and wireless in a larger perspective than just mobile entertainment and apps. It must be the effect of watching our garden explode with new life again that triggers this.

In the environmetal debate the mobile industry is not very present. Despite the graduation from only offering token “green telecoms” slots at conferences, to being a real subject, wireless has not made it to the main stage of the climate discussion.

What’s worse is that at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December wireless is not even on the agenda. At MWC in Barcelona, claims were made that the CO2 emission in connection with “running” a mobile operator’s customer for one year corresponds to the CO2 emission from one hour of car driving. I will not argue the facts but if we assume that the order of magnitude is somewhat right, the implication is pretty substantial.

We need to get beoynd “let’s use more energy efficient servers and low energy bulbs” when it comes to seeing what telecoms can do for the environment. It still seems like most of the discussion is on renewable energy etc. Even though some sober calculations show that some so called solutions are completely unrealistic. David MacKay’s book Without the hot air reveals has some good examples for you.

In the light of the fact that telecoms already do a lot for the environment, but surely can do much better, it feels criminal not to make use of this and create some impact. Politicians, time to talk to the telco execs? Telco execs, time to talk to the politician about other things than radio spectrum and license auctions? The self proclamied recovered politician Al Gore has started to bridge the gap somewhat. His keynote speech at CTIA in Las Vegas in March touched on this. Hopefully he will be able to drag telecom as a climate changer for good onto the world stage.

A final word goes to the hosts at the UN conference in Copenhagen in December – please put telecoms on the agenda and invite the key players from the telecom industry!