Previous United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) events indicate that they are increasingly less impactful, but that enterprise communications service providers should continue to lead the way in addressing sustainability challenges, according to analysis conducted by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Robert Pritchard, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Technology & Services at GlobalData, says: “There was a genuine sense of progress at the 2021 COP26 in Glasgow, but since then momentum has slowed, impact has dwindled, and attendance has fallen. Expectations for COP29 are low.”
GlobalData analysis sees that there has been a degree of pushback from previous sustainability goals by a number of governments, enterprises, and investors. This is despite clear ongoing evidence of the catastrophic impact of climate change disasters on populations, economies, and political stability around the world.
Pritchard adds: “When confronted by more immediate concerns like economic challenges and war, governments have naturally been distracted from the long-term impact of global warming. Populist rhetoric and denial of the scientific proof is also becoming more mainstream, with many people considering climate change as someone else’s problem – until they themselves are hit by a hurricane, wildfire, or flash flood.”
Historically, the tech sector has been a leader in setting and achieving ambitious sustainability and emissions reduction goals, but this has been knocked off course by the impact of the sudden take-up of Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence), which, for example, uses ten times as much energy as standard online searches.
This market-driven spike in demand has had consequences in terms of consumption of natural resources such as energy and water, leading data center operators in particular to look for solutions like nuclear power to mitigate the climate impact of their operations.
Pritchard concludes: “Despite such headwinds, the tech sector as a whole continues to lead in innovations to improve sustainability in their own operations, across the supply and value chains, and for their enterprise customers. Their efforts should be commended and encouraged because, as leading activists say, there is no Planet B.”
