ICTs: Do they contribute to increased carbon emissions?

There is much evidence that the deployment of information and communications technologies (ICTs) can improve economic productivity, reduce energy intensity and exert downward pressure on renewable energy costs. While significant insights have been revealed about each of these effects in isolation, literature has not established their combined implications for carbon emissions. This article uses the International Futures (IFs) integrated assessment system (www.ifs.du.edu) to explore the dynamic impacts of ICT on interacting global systems, including economic and energy systems, and resultant carbon emissions. First, it reviews the literature on the various impacts of ICT; next, it extracts relationships from previously existing quantitative studies on the subject; third, it explains the addition of these relationships to the IFs structure; fourth, it explores the implications of the acceleration of ICT penetration; finally, it frames a range of uncertainty around the analysis through scenarios. The authors argue that ICT can have a downward impact on overall carbon emissions across a 50-year time horizon. However, the net impact of ICT is limited, and if policy makers are concerned with substantial reductions in overall stocks of carbon in the atmosphere, our model shows that ICT promotion must be coupled a global price on carbon.

► We model the integrated impact of ICT on productivity, energy intensity and renewable energy cost.
► This article reflects structural improvements within the International Futures (IFs) model.
► This article builds scenarios to frame multiple uncertainties around the impact of ICT.
► ICTs can have a modest overall downward impact on carbon emissions.
► An optimistic ICT scenario has a similar impact on emissions to a 100$ global carbon price.