Contributed Article
By Steven Moore, Head of Climate Action at the GSMA
It’s Day One of COP28 and I’m in Dubai with members of the GSMA’s Climate Action Taskforce, alongside thousands of delegates including Heads of State, policymakers, climate negotiators and representatives of public and private sector bodies from every corner of the world.
Over the course of the next two weeks, we will be attending and contributing to sessions focused on the urgent need to expedite the reduction of carbon emissions. Scientists have identified the year 2030 as a crucial point by which we need to have significantly reduced emissions to avoid an irreversible tipping point. With this year’s conference taking place as we pass the midpoint since that target was set in the Paris Agreement, we can expect a renewed push from delegates to ‘keep 1.5°C alive’.
The 1.5°C ambition was one of the primary aspirations of the Paris Agreement, which was adopted at COP21 in 2015. The treaty aims to limit rises in average global temperatures to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit any increase to 1.5°C, after which point the impact of climate change grows even more unpredictable and difficult to manage – resulting in more frequent and severe climate-related emergencies, including droughts, heatwaves and flooding.
Each year, we continue to see an increase in emissions, making the prospect of realising the UN’s climate ambitions difficult to imagine; yet, with several years to go until the crucial turning point, there is still time to get the world on track.
From ambition to action
Meeting the 2030 deadline will require all sectors of the economy to reduce their impact on the planet, of which the first step for any business is to set a carbon reduction target.
Ambition can be clearly observed across the mobile ecosystem, with this year’s GSMA Mobile Net Zero report noting 62 operators have now committed to a science-based target to rapidly decrease direct and indirect emissions by 2030 – a key driver for the overall sector achieving net zero by 2050. This figure represents almost half (46%) of total mobile connections globally and is an increase of 12 operators compared to the previous year.
But telecoms is now a horizontal industry that partners with every other sector, and the use of mobile technologies acts as a key enabler of decarbonisation; the GSMA is therefore actively supporting the greening of industries where mobile technologies can play a key role, such as manufacturing, agriculture, energy, transportation and critical infrastructure.
Setting voluntary targets is an encouraging sign of the industry’s willingness to reduce its impact on the planet, but action will ultimately be what’s needed. Here, a climate transition plan can help organisations to identify the roadmap through which they will deliver on their sustainability commitments.
Recognising this is easier said than done, the GSMA is partnering with the UN’s International Telecommunication Union on its Green Digital Action programme which aims to foster a more collaborative approach to addressing climate challenges in the ICT industry. As part of the initiative, which launches at COP28, the GSMA will deliver a session centred around climate transition plans – exploring the building blocks of a credible plan, their role in helping organisations fulfil carbon reduction pledges, and the external factors that companies must consider along their sustainability roadmap.
Laying the foundations for change
While the sector is taking action to cut its emissions, the reality is industry cannot go at it alone – governments must lead if we stand a chance of keeping 1.5°C alive.
While over 140 countries have committed to achieving net zero in some form, there are significant regional variations and the climate targets of many of the world’s largest countries are not aligned with the scale of the climate crisis. Part of the solution involves every government being more ambitious with their nationally determined contributions, and taking steps to align their carbon-reduction targets to net zero by 2050 at the very latest.
Governments must go further and concrete action is required, with many countries still lacking the necessary frameworks that would allow for businesses to deliver on their climate commitments. For example, the transition to renewable energy represents one of the most effective means of reducing an organisation’s emissions, with European operators now purchasing, on average, over 80% of their electricity from renewable sources. However, a lack of access and, at times, political constraints mean not all countries have the mechanisms in place that allow for the corporate purchase of, and investment into, new renewable energy capacity, resulting in significant regional discrepancies.
Sufficient progress will only ever be made if governments show their commitment by taking bold steps to reduce emissions. To this end, the GSMA recently supported two open letters published in the run-up to COP28: one from The B Team calling on the G20 Heads of State to deliver on the Paris Agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework and 1.5°C; and another from the Global Renewables Alliance, pushing for a tripling of global renewable capacity by 2030.
The time for action is now
With a recent warning that the current trajectory risks the world veering towards temperature rises of 2.9°C, the scale of the challenge is enormous. But as we saw with the digital transformation kickstarted by the pandemic, history has shown that when change does happen, it can happen quickly.
Keeping 1.5°C alive will require bold action from every government, industry and individual, and it’s time for the world to get behind the drive to save our planet.
Concrete outcomes from COP28 will only be possible with buy-in from every country involved, but even the most well-meaning declarations will be meaningless without proper action – we call for progressive policy from governments to build the necessary frameworks to give industry the means to decarbonise. Reducing emissions to ensure the sustainability of the planet, society and industries is the prime challenge of the current era, and the mobile industry and its partners stand ready and willing to rise up to the challenge.
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