the digital with the dematerialization of documents and human activities online has long been perceived by our societies as the solution to combat climate change. But the environmental debt of high-tech continues to grow and recent studies indicate that our bulimia for data and the poorly controlled web already represents 4% of global CO2 emissions.
Ecological transition and digital transition would however be two inseparable subjects, representing major challenges that should be tackled head-on, believes Sébastien Garnault, creator of the French group CyberTaskForce and founder of the Paris Cyber Week.
” We have two subjects of sovereignty which seem to oppose : on the one hand the security of energy supplies and on the other hand the security of digital tools. Between the two are the computer data which also makes it possible to control the environmental impact of the technologies. This digitized and analyzed feedback provides us with a real decision-making tool. This is the right way and the right gateway to successfully completing the two major transitions of the 21st century, those of digital technology and ecology. Now the question is how to achieve this. We can notice that in the public debate, there is a strong opposition between two paradigm shifts. For example, with the deployment of 5G, for which the energy consumption of digital systems seems to run counter to the obligation to reduce our environmental impact. However, the two subjects are ultimately inseparable and it is now becoming urgent to articulate them with each other. »
Europe, with its program entitled the “ Green Pact ”, which most of the high tech industries adhere to, hopes to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. But the mad rush for cryptocurrencies in many states risks jeopardizing this objective. China, for example, is multiplying coal-fired factories to generate the electricity needed to produce the most famous of virtual currencies, the bitcoin. It thus rejects phenomenal quantities of CO2 which will reach, according to experts, 130 million tons in 2024. The climate impact of cryptocurrencies is not exclusive, however, our online activities have already released in the last 24 hours about 2.5 million tons of gas to greenhouse effect.
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