28. ITU: Moving Towards a Global Policy Framework on ICTs and Climate Change

Voluntary initiatives undertaken across private and public sectors have enabled innovative national and regional ICT practices, however fragmented and localized in scope these collaborations are. Policy proposals for an enabling environment have emerged from the voluntary actors, highlighting the need for a framework to spur adoption of carbon-friendly ICT practices. By exploring the links between ICT and climate change, this paper intends to highlight the policy gaps that exist to enable a wider use of ICT for climate change solutions. The study explores the potentials of climate change mainstreaming into global ICT policy platforms at the ITU, as it moves towards a framework regarding ICTs and climate change. A combination of supply and demand side policy analysis identified the forces that present both risk and opportunity for ITU to become a more meaningful player in this context. It was identified that ITU can enable greater coherence and catalysis among stakeholders and policy areas given the potentials across climate change mitigation, monitoring, and adaptation.