7th ITU symposium on ICTs, the environment and climate change

Background

The event will be co-organized with the government of Canada and will be hosted by Prompt. This is the seventh symposium on climate change following successful events held between 2008 and 2011 in Kyoto, London, Quito, Seoul, Cairo and Accra.

The main purpose of the event is to move the agenda forward on using ICTs to monitor climate change, mitigate and adapt to its effects and, in this light, identify future requirements for ITU’s related work – including standardization of ICT equipment and networks as well as development activities. (see Resolution 182 (Guadalajara, 2010), Resolution 66 (Hyderabad, 2010) and Resolution 73 (Johannesburg, 2008)).

The symposium in Montreal will focus on the issue of ICTs, the environment and climate change in the world and the needs for the use of ICTs to promote environmental sustainability. Topics to be discussed will include mitigation and adaptation to climate change, e-waste management, disaster preparedness and emergency communications, cost-effective ICT technologies, methodologies for the environmental impact assessment of ICTs, challenges and opportunities in the transition to a green and resource efficient economy, among others.

The symposium will identify possible goals, commitments and modalities of ICT sector commitments to be developed in the process leading to the 2012 ITU World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-12) and United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD 2012 or Rio+20), strengthening at the same time the collaboration between the ICT and environmental communities.