[LINK] Model of Carbon Trading Missing ICT

[Richard Chirgwin]

Tom,

> This is despite research 
> showing ICT [contributes] more to greenhouse gasses than airlines do.
Only because yours was the second time today this number popped up in
front of me ... what's the source for the "more than aviation" statement?

(Not that I necessarily disbelieve it, I just prefer data to be sourced!)

(Hmm. Probably, more people use the Internet than fly, so it may not
even necessarily be a surprise...)

RC

Tom Worthington wrote:
> The Australian Government released "Australia's Low Pollution Future: 
> The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation", 30 October 2008 
> <http://www.treasury.gov.au/lowpollutionfuture/>. This reports 
> economic modelling of the proposed cap-and-trade "Carbon Pollution 
> Reduction Scheme". It finds a modest cost for the scheme.
>
> But the report is deficient in not considering the impact of new 
> technologies on climate change. There is only one reference to the 
> Internet: "Who at that time could have predicted developments such as 
> the internet, containerised shipping or modern air freight?" (page 
> 18). There are ten references to air transportation, but none to the 
> web, ICT computers or telecommunications. This is despite research 
> showing ICT more to greenhouse gasses than airlines do.
>
> The main report is provided in one PDF and RTF document and chapter 
> by chapter. The full report is 292 pages in a 2.2 Mbyte PDF file. At 
> about 8 kbytes per page, that is a reasonable size for a PDF 
> document. But the designers could have done a better job of offering 
> the summary material to the reader before the full report. Many web 
> users will click on the first link of a page and in this case that 
> will be to the 2.2 Mbyte full report. It would be better if a small 
> web page summary was offered first.
>
> Unfortunately the poor formatting of the document will contribute to 
> greenhouse gas emissions. An example, 80% of the "preliminaries" 
> section of the document is taken up with high quality facsimile 
> autographs of the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the Minister for Climate 
> Change and Water, Penny Wong. As well as providing a way to fake 
> government documents, these "signatures" waste space and add nothing 
> of value to the report.
>
> More in my blog at: 
> <http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/11/economic-model-of-carbon-trading.html>.
>
>
>
> Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
> Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
> PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
> Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University  
>
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