WSIS Action Line C7 E-environment: Milestones, challenges and future directions

Experts convene at AI for Good Forum to discuss ICT’s role in environmental sustainability and future challenges

The AI for Good Forum, hosted by UNEP, WMO, and ITU, convened experts to discuss the progress and future of the C7 ICT applications on the e-environment action line, within the WSIS Geneva Plan of Actions framework. The forum aimed to review past achievements, current challenges, and emerging trends beyond 2025, focusing on three primary goals.

1. **Environmental Protection and Resource Use (David Jensen, UNEP):** Jensen highlighted the potential of ICTs to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and material consumption, citing reports that estimate a 20% reduction in emissions across various sectors and a 90% reduction in material consumption in some cases. Despite these positive figures, he pointed out the difficulty in accurately measuring these impacts. Jensen identified five domains where ICTs could have a transformative impact, including efficiency optimization, digital substitution for physical products, empowering sustainable consumer choices, enabling sustainability innovations, and collecting global environmental data. Challenges included the slow integration of digital technologies into environmental agreements and national strategies, and the need for an international standards framework for environmental data.

2. **Sustainable Production and E-Waste (Noémie Pralat, ITU):** Pralat addressed the increasing carbon and waste footprint of ICTs, emphasizing the growing problem of e-waste and its environmental hazards, such as mercury release. She discussed the potential benefits of a circular economy for electronics, which could reduce ore extraction and emissions. Pralat also highlighted the social implications of the digital divide, with billions still lacking access to digital environmental services. Key milestones included the development of the global e-waste monitor and ITU standards for e-waste management. Partnerships, such as the Circular Electronics Partnership and the Basel Convention PACE 2, were crucial in advancing e-waste management. Challenges included the need for better data, policy, legislation, and increased financing, while opportunities lay in digital product passports, strengthened regulatory frameworks, and public-private partnerships.

3. **Disaster Monitoring Systems (Claire Ransom, WMO):** Ransom discussed WMO’s role in monitoring and forecasting extreme weather and climate events, where ICTs are essential throughout the process. She outlined the importance of data sharing for improved forecasting and effective decision-making. Milestones included the Severe Weather Forecasting Program and the unified data policy for climate data sharing. Challenges faced by WMO included the quality and accessibility of ICTs, organizational competency, and the collection and sharing of impact information. Opportunities were seen in the Early Warning for All Initiative and the potential of AI and big data in enhancing monitoring capabilities.

Audience participation brought forth important concerns and suggestions. One participant questioned the environmental impact of digital storage, while another suggested including waste from energy production in discussions. Additionally, the need for integrating man-made disasters into disaster risk reduction strategies was raised, with a call for UNDRR to have a more prominent role.

In conclusion, the session acknowledged the slower-than-desired pace of progress in integrating ICTs into environmental sustainability efforts. The need for more ambitious and impactful action was emphasized, with a call for increased resources, political will, and operational capacity to scale up initiatives. The rapid evolution of technology and the necessity for governance frameworks to adapt accordingly were also recognized, ensuring that new trends and technologies are incorporated into future strategies.

Noemie Pralat:
AI for Good Forum, so we’ll do with our online participants today. So welcome to the session, which is hosted by three UN agencies, UNEP, WMO and ITU, and we’re really looking forward to discussing milestones, challenges and emerging trends beyond 2025 for this C7 ICT applications on the e-environment action line. The VISIS Geneva Plan of Actions defines three goals for action line C7 on e-environment, and each of the agencies will present today one of these goals to discuss what has been done in the past 20 years and also inspire you, plant some seeds into what we foresee as great emerging trends beyond 2025. So first I think we’ll give the floor to UNEP, David Jensen. David, probably you can introduce yourself better than I can do for you, and you’ll present on the first goal of this action line.

David Jensen:
Sure, thank you very much, happy to be here. You’ll notice I’m not Sally Radwan. Sally Radwan is UNEP’s Chief Digital Officer. She asked me to stand in for her today, so I will present the progress made in goal one on using and promoting ICTs as an instrument for environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources. I’m coming from UNEP, I’m based here in Geneva, and I am responsible for digital transformation within the Europe region and the North American region. So let me just quickly talk about how the context is changing in terms of using ICT as an instrument to protect the environment. I would say there’s been a number of key reports that have looked at this broader question, how can ICT enable environmental action? There was a major report by Jesse called Smarter 2021. 2030, there was Digital with Purpose, there’s been a whole series called Rethink X around rethinking humanity. And each of these reports have really tried to quantify how ICT can be used to enable environmental protection. Some early statistics that came out of these reports are listed on the screen here. So in terms of climate action, one of the reports estimated that you could achieve about a 20% reduction of CO2 emissions when ICTs are applied to five different sectors. So they looked at mobility, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, buildings, and they calculated sort of a 20% reduction in CO2 from the use of ICT. And they basically calculated that ICT solutions can basically help cut about 10 times more than they emit. So quite a significant enabling function in the climate domain. In the nature protection domain, another report looked at, again, looking at how ICT can be used to track and trace and improve efficiency of resource use. And they calculated that in some sectors, ICTs could reduce material consumption by about 90%, which is quite significant. And then in terms of pollution prevention, again, looking at how ICT can kind of promote circularity, reduce waste, they calculated that it can actually contribute between 10 and 100 times of pollution reduction. So we have some kind of early figures, but I’d say that the challenge right now is one of measurement. It is very difficult to measure these things accurately at a sector wide level, whether it’s climate, nature, pollution, that the measurement remains a massive challenge. And that’s one of our core messages going forward is that we really have to nail this measurement question down. How do we actually measure the impact, positive impact, as well as the negative impact? And look at the net, the net positive impact or the net negative impact. So we need that’s the core goal that we need to take forward. going forward. So what are the main domains that that we’re looking at in the environmental sustainability world? I’d say that the world is kind of partitioning into kind of five use cases or applications, whatever you want to call them. But the big ones are first and foremost using ICT to enable efficiency optimization, tracking and tracing of natural resources. This is really kind of private sector, you know, maximizing resource use, tracking and tracing resources across supply chains and optimizing various business processes that rely on resources. So that’s kind of the first big domain. The second is really substituting physical products for digital products. Everybody’s familiar with this one. Everybody has a phone, probably some kind of streaming service, probably some kind of media service. But, you know, moving from that physical product to the digital product has a huge reduction of the environmental footprint of that product or service. The third one, and this is probably my favorite one, is really helping people find and comparing more sustainable products and services, right? Using filters and search tools to enable people to identify which product has the least environmental footprint and choosing it. So really empowering people to be better consumers. The fourth is looking at how these tools can actually enable new products, new materials, new sustainability innovations, new insights. And the final one, probably my other favorite one, is really collecting environmental data at a global scale. Collecting data at a global scale, analyzing it and really supporting environmental decision making. So I’d say those are sort of the five big domains that the use cases are kind of revolving around. Some of the key milestones. I think this is an interesting question. These milestones are very much kind of international and from a UNEP perspective. I’d be love to know what you guys think the key milestones have been, but these are some of the ones that I would highlight. I think. In 2019, the UN Environmental Assembly called for UNEP to develop a global environmental data strategy, basically an overarching strategy to govern environmental data at a planetary scale. That strategy has still not been adopted, but it was a key milestone to actually call for it and to have us working on it and to get all member states and stakeholders involved in co-developing that strategy. So that’s something ongoing right now. Playing for the planet, another milestone. This is, basically it’s a private sector initiative. We’ve got about 40 of the largest gaming companies in the world that have agreed to embed environmental messaging directly within their video games. So they’re using video games as a way of influencing behavior, of raising awareness, and they’re looking at how different climate messages, biodiversity messages, pollution messages can be embedded directly into the game. So I think that’s quite a nice milestone. Surprisingly, in terms of number of people reached, we’re talking in the hundreds of millions of players, right? You wouldn’t necessarily think it has a huge reach, but in fact, I think it’s over 400 million people have been exposed to some of these awareness messages through video games. The next big one I would call attention to is the Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability, the CODES Action Plan. This was the first time where we had governments, UN agencies, private sector, civil society, academia come together and try to define what the key issues were for digital environmental sustainability. And they identified a series of three major tracks and nine impact initiatives that they would like to see go forward, and that is still moving ahead. And then in the last couple of years, I’d say we’ve had two interesting milestone reports. One was looking at digital tools for circularity, and one which was released just yesterday is looking at digital public infrastructure for sustainability. So again, these are sort of new knowledge products that are looking at this space. And then finally, we have the Digital for Sustainability e-learning program, which is the first attempt to really look at how digital tools can accelerate work in climate, nature, and pollution. In terms of some of the big platforms, I’m actually not going to go through these because I don’t think we have a lot of time, but what I would say here is that these digital tools are now being used to monitor global-scale environmental phenomenon, and it’s really interesting to see. So we’ve got platforms that are looking at global surface water, we’ve got ones looking at global biodiversity, ones looking at methane. These are truly global views of the Earth, almost real-time data, trying to track and trace where the big hotspots are, and trying to direct action to those hotspots. So the challenges that I see in implementing the Goal 1, I’d say there’s sort of five challenges. I’d say the first challenge is really that many environmental agreements, whether it’s the Paris Agreement or the Biodiversity Agreement, they’re still not really embedding digital technologies as goals in their agreements. So you’re starting to see it a little bit, but it’s not consistent, and they’re not really yet kind of embracing digital tools to enable their goals, I would say. So that’s the first challenge. Second big challenge, if you dip down to the national level and you look at national digital transformation strategies, most of those strategies are still blind to environment. They’re not looking at the environmental impacts of digital, they’re not looking at enabling, they’re still very much just talking about economic development and how digital can accelerate economy, but they’re not looking at environment. Some do, but it’s a minority. I’d say the third challenge is the International Standards Framework. If you look at sort of environmental data, again, the International Standards Framework is just a patchwork still, and it needs to be brought together. And as I mentioned, we’re working on this in the Global Environmental Data Strategy, but it’s still early days, and that’s a big challenge. The fourth one is that I would say that the platforms themselves and the algorithms are not really yet promoting sustainability as an outcome. They’re not systematically promoting sustainable products and services and behaviors. It’s still very much optional and it’s still very hard to find, I would say. Even in a big platform like Amazon, it’s not easy to really compare the environmental footprint of product A to product B, right? They’re not making it easy for consumers to do that yet. And then finally, I’d say, you know, linking this question of just transition and the environment agenda to the development agenda, again, remains difficult. So those are some of the big challenges. And then my final slide is really like, what are the big trends and opportunities? These kind of very much mirror what I just said, but in all the new international digital governance frameworks, whether it’s the Global Digital Compact, whether it’s the World Summit for the Information Society, we need to make sure that environmental sustainability goals are embedded. It has to be a key priority. So within the digital world, we need to embed environment. And with the environmental world, we have to embed digital. And that has to happen systematically going forward. Within these national digital transformation strategies, again, we need to integrate environmental issues, both enabling and negative impacts. The data governance frameworks, we have to get this global environmental data strategy moving and adopted, and we need these standards to govern environmental data. When it comes to AI, again, this is a big one for us, but how do we start to measure the environmental footprint of AI, right? How do we have a coherent framework for measuring AI, and then for companies to disclose their environmental footprints from AI? And then finally, as I mentioned, how do we enable consumers to be more sustainable in their e-commerce world? We need more standards on consumer information and actually enabling people to compare products and to choose more sustainable ones. So I’d say those are the five sort of big core needs going forward, and that’s kind of a very quick overview of the first goal in Action Line 7. Thanks.

Noemie Pralat:
Thank you very much, David, for this comprehensive overview of this. first goal. Probably I’ll ask if anyone has one question, a pressing question while I change the slides for the second goal presentation.

David Jensen:
You change the slides and I’ll take over moderation briefly. You were nodding your head a few times, so let’s go. Do you have any questions?

Audience:
Any questions from anybody else? I remember that you talked about a report on rethinking humanity. Can you give short keywords on this? I will buy this book.

David Jensen:
It’s free, actually. It’s an author by the name of Tony Seba. He’s basically a professor. I can’t remember which university you’ll have to look and see, but basically he started looking at how can we rethink humanity? How do we use digital tools to achieve sustainability? He started to issue these technical assessments sector by sector. He’s looked at mobility, he’s looked at climate, he’s looked at agriculture, and they’re trying to quantify exactly what the benefit could be. As I said, quantify the benefit and quantify the risk as well, the negative side. They’re not books. They’re online reports. They’re free to download. I would say that was the first attempt to try to put some decent figures around this question of measurement. I’m not saying it was perfect, but at least it was an attempt to try to estimate what this enabling function is. I would say in terms of you’re looking to read the literature landscape, like the synthesis literature, RethinkX is a good one. Then the other one is this Global Environmental Sustainability Initiative, GESI. It’s a private sector coalition, but they’ve also tried to put some numbers on the enabling effects of ICT for the environment.

Audience:
In parallel, we have that highly complex is a system of monetizing nature. You see these values of nature formalization. It’s so complex. I was astonished about that work, especially European Union, but applied all around the world. So there is some positive about it, but there also can be some negative thoughts about it. Just to mention, I think that is a key issue for information society, that is how to monetize. And everyone picks up his ears from society where he sees monetizing, what is capitalism is doing with our nature.

David Jensen:
You mean, you’re saying monetization, yeah? Monetization, yeah. I mean, monetization and the business model, I mean, that’s sort of, you have to understand the business model to understand how sustainable any enterprise is. And if the monetization approach doesn’t sort of include sustainability, then it’s not a very good business model, frankly. But I think that’s a key question, is how are natural resources being monetized? Are business models changing to be more sustainable because of ICT? If they’re not, then this is just kind of hype, right? It’s not actually changing anything. Did you manage to get the other presentation lined up?

Noemie Pralat:
Business model was also a good transition towards the second goal. So good afternoon, everyone. My name is Noémie Pralat. I work as an e-waste policy advisor at the International Telecommunication Union. So working on e-waste and circular economy, here’s the link I saw. So I’ll start with the presentation of the second goal, which speaks of initiating actions, implementing projects and programs for sustainable production and consumption, and the environmentally safe disposal and recycling of discarded hardware and components used in ICTs. So I’ll start. with a strong sentence which is that digital technologies, they’re powerful tools that can have a transformative effect on the SDGs and they should be developed and deployed with societal and environmental impacts in mind. Digital technologies, they contribute to climate change mitigation by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and aiding in climate adaptation by managing risks and impacts. Digital tools, they also support climate monitoring and forecasting but they often come with increasing demand for data centers, energy intensive ICT equipment and a growing carbon and waste footprint. So by using technologies responsibly, we can harness the digital transformation and digital revolution to combat climate change and promote sustainability. And on the other side, circularity, e-waste and the ICT sector’s carbon footprint have been growing rapidly as the world becomes more connected and electronic dependency increases. So the transition to a circular economy for electronics is a challenging endeavor for many government and industry players. Better data and statistics and better and more policy and legislation are needed to support countries and industry sectors to transition to a circular economy for electronics. When it comes to the impact that ICTs can have on sustainable futures, I see to me they’re fivefold in the sense that firstly ICTs are responsible for extensive energy and materials use. They are associated with the four percent of global electricity consumption using approximately 30 critical minerals which are needed for the digital sector. And a recent study on digital companies surveyed that the 200 leading companies, digital companies emitted 260 million tons of carbon. dioxide equivalent. These are the 2021 estimates. Secondly, unmanaged production, consumption and disposal of ICTs can lead to pollution. Each year, our latest data speaks that the 62 billion kilograms of e-waste were emitted. These are the 2022 estimates, and ICTs are also associated with the generation of between 2 and 4 percent of global GHG emissions. When it comes to unmanaged e-waste, unmanaged e-waste releases 58,000 kilograms of mercury and 45 million kilograms of plastics into the environment yearly. Speaking also of e-waste, I added this first component, but then let’s highlight also the untouched potential of a circular economy from e-waste. Our latest report also highlights that the use of secondary raw materials from e-waste avoided the extraction of 900 billion kilograms of ore, and also avoided 52 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. We addressed the environmental spheres, we’ve addressed the economic sphere of sustainability, but let’s not forget the social sphere, because ICTs have a considerable impact on digital divide, and 2.6 billion people are still disconnected. So, obviously, if they’re disconnected, they lack all of these environmental services that digital can bring to them. Finally, let’s not forget also e-waste regulatory frameworks, which are strong building blocks to ensure sustainable management of ICTs in their end of life. So, the scene is set, let us turn towards key milestones, 20 years of achievements on standards, guidelines, and reports, and then I’ll detail all about partnerships. So the first edition of the global e-waste monitor dates back to 10 years ago. The 2014 edition of the GEM was the first comprehensive assessment of global e-waste volumes and corresponding impacts and management status on a global scale. Then there was a 2017 edition which added a layer of analysis on the trends in the consumption of electronic and electrical equipment. Then in 2018, the ITU Standardization Bureau edited, developed a series of recommendations on e-waste called the L-series. This recommendation 1021, dating back to 2018, was really key because it offered, and it still offers today, a description of extended producer responsibility systems in dealing with e-waste, with roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders, different types of EPR, different types of organizational structures to put in place. Then in 2019, there was a recommendation on circularity and ICTs, and it’s a guide to a circular economy for ICTs. It discusses considerations, challenges, material efficiencies for ICTs. Then the 2020 edition of the Global E-waste Monitor was a milestone because it was even more comprehensive than the previous ones. It provided global e-waste statistics and the magnitude of the e-waste challenges in different regions of the world. It was pretty much quoted more than a thousand times. And then in 2023, there was the second edition of the report Greening Digital Companies, the first one having been published a year earlier. And it documents the emissions and energy use of 200 of the world’s leading digital companies. And it serves as a resource for the companies to learn from best practices. and improve their emissions reduction performance. I’ve mentioned only two standards here, but I need to mention that the L-series of standards includes 30 standards that are relevant to EOS and circular economy. And the latest milestones, they include the Global EOS Monitor published in March, recommendations on digital product passport, and an upcoming edition, probably in the autumn, of the Greening Digital Companies Report. Let’s now talk partnerships, because key milestones, they also revolve around coordination between key partners and stakeholders worldwide. And I have to feature several examples of strong partnerships that help move things forward. The first one is the Circular Electronics Partnership, which is a coordination platform for global organizations and businesses to create a circular electronics industry. The partnership was formally launched in 2021 and functions via its circular economy roadmap, which identifies 40 industry-wide barriers for companies to transition to circularity, to be addressed by 2030. Then we have the Basel Convention PACE 2, because the parties to the Basel Convention continued in 2022 with the follow-up partnership named Partnership for Action on challenges relating to e-waste. And this partnership focuses on use in waste mobile phones, computing equipment, TV screens, fridges, cooling and heating equipment, and promotes training activities, develops guidance documents on the end of life of this equipment. In 2017, ITU, the former UNU and the International Solid Waste Association created the Global E-Waste Statistics Partnership, which is now managed by ITU and the UNITAR-ESSA. cycle program and its objectives are to monitor the development of e-waste over time and to help countries to produce e-waste statistics. So it’s an initiative that informs policy makers, industries, academia, media and the general public to interpret global e-waste data. And it’s been instrumental for the global e-waste monitors. Second to last is the solving the e-waste problem, which dates back to 2007 and was developed as an independent multi-stakeholder platform for designing strategies addressing all dimensions of electronics. And its step facilitates research, analysis and dialogues among members drawn from public and private sectors, businesses, NGOs, academia. And finally, launched at COP28 is the Green Digital Action, where over 40 partner organizations launched the program to step up digital climate action. The goal is to reduce ICT sector emissions, to foster circular ICT industry, to advance climate solutions through open governmental and open environmental data and technologies to build this momentum and facilitate a green transition across all industries. I’ve presented key statistics already, which highlight the challenges. Here are some more if you want to take a picture of these stats, which I see as challenges in implementing this second goal. I’ll let you take a picture and then focus more on the solutions and opportunities. You’ve seen that recommendations on digital product passports were recently adopted. And the use of such digital product passports could be useful to track and trace the environmental footprints of products across their supply chain and life cycles, as well as contribute to circularity. I also made a point that strengthened regulatory frameworks would be key to ensure sustainable e-waste management, and there are many requests from countries willing to be champions in that matter. Then, with lower barriers for access to used ICTs or e-waste, this could boost the potential for circularity, which is also encouraged through eco-design standards. A policy principle that has a strong impact on sustainable production and consumption of equipment is the extended producer responsibility principle, which extends the responsibility of producers to the entire lifecycle of electronics, which includes then the disposal of ICTs, of discarded ICTs. Second to last, I highlighted several partnerships that are moving things forward, and I think that public-private partnerships, initiatives, champions, commitments from digital companies are key to ensure that we work together towards goal 2. And finally, a trend is increasing funding, financing for special waste streams such as e-waste, and increased financing is key to establish strong value chains, especially end-of-life management chains for these complex waste streams. So I’ll stop here with the trends and opportunities, and we’ll turn, I think, to the last presenter before opening discussion.

David Jensen:
We can take one question and then move across, like we did before.

Noemie Pralat:
I think there was some activity in the chat during the presentation, but I don’t see it right now. Any questions from the floor? One second, we have a question in the back.

Audience:
Yes, thank you so much. It’s very interesting to see on the policy side on the intersection between data and environment. I was working at the accelerator, so working closely with startups to implement green tech, circular economy initiatives. So I could relate a lot with what has been discussed, especially in terms of environmental footprint. One of the, well, the questions that I have is how can we ensure the collaboration between the people on the ground, which are the startups or civil society organization with the policy makers to make sure that they collaborate together and achieve this Waze’s action line goals as well as the SDGs. That’s the burning question that I have. Thank you very much.

Noemie Pralat:
Thank you very much. And it’s good to hear and meet people who move things on the ground. I can give you an example from ITU’s work on the ground in developing policy frameworks, regulatory frameworks on e-waste. Usually when we respond to requests from member states to assist them in their policy making journeys, a very first long step is a consultation process that usually is the longest step and in which the goal is to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are consulted. And this includes, and mostly the phase that takes the longest time is meeting and finding appropriate private stakeholders, civil society representatives and academia. Usually this is done through exchanging with local partners, discussing, but it’s a bit of a messy process and it takes some time to meet the correct people and to ensure sufficient time is given to hear about their preoccupations on the ground. Because as you highlighted, it’s not about enforcing top-down policy. It’s rather usually the best way as a whole of society approach. building things from the ground up.

David Jensen:
I would add that I’d say there’s been a big shift as well in the way the UN delivers products and services to countries. I’d say in the past it was a bit top-down and it’s really shifting towards more of a human-centered design approach, trying to understand what the problem is. Like not starting with the technology, but starting with the people who need to benefit from the technology, starting there and building backwards. I’ve seen a real shift in the mentality in the last, I’d say, like a couple years. There has been a big shift towards more user-centered design. I think the other thing is that standards development is the key entry point as well. Whether it’s the ITU standards or whether it’s the UNEP data standards, all of those standards processes are usually very multi-stakeholder consultative processes. I know it’s hard for SMEs in one particular country to reach into sometimes these global processes, but usually those global processes have entry points for that voice. Whether it’s a single company voice or a coalition of companies or a business association, they’re really hungry to hear their needs. Like in the global environmental data strategy, I want to hear about what the pain points are on the ground that this kind of global set of standards can solve. For me, an SME stakeholder is fundamental. That’s who I need to hear from and that’s who we need to design around. I just want to re-emphasize that that voice is essential and we always do have channels, but I admit it’s hard sometimes to figure out where the entry point is. It is, as you say, it’s messy. Whether it’s national or global, it’s extremely messy, but we are absolutely committed to making sure that those voices are heard.

Noemie Pralat:
As you say, the ITU standardization process, the amount of consultation that you guys conduct is phenomenal in the development of the standards. There’s always space for civil society, for NGOs, for SMEs in that process. Can we turn to the third speaker, which is an online remote speaker? Claire, we can see you. Can we test if we can hear you?

Claire Ransom:
Can you hear me? Testing, testing.

Noemie Pralat:
We hear you. Excellent. I’m just going to adjust the sound to in the room because it’s not too loud. So, Claire, can you introduce yourself and then discuss the third aspect of this action line, please?

Claire Ransom:
Yes, absolutely. Happy to. And I know we’re running close on time, so I’ll do my best to get through. Luckily, it’s the fastest of the three. But hello to everybody online and in the room. My name is Claire Ransom, and I’m an assistant scientific officer here at the World Meteorological Organization. And my team is really responsible for the state of the climate reporting. We actually don’t do a lot of work on ICTs, but a lot of everything we do in the building, as you’ll see in our presentation, is very related. And so we’re sort of the custodians here within the building of the action line. So as you’ve seen on the previous slides, we’re working our way down. I’ll be discussing goal three, which is to establish monitoring systems using ICTs to forecast and monitor the impact of, and that’s very much in parentheses, natural and man-made disasters, particularly in developing countries, LDCs and small economies. So at WMO, we actually, it’s not really within our mandate to monitor the impact of disasters. We do work with a number of other organizations. But what I’ll be discussing today is really how ICTs are embedded in our entire process here at WMO, and sort of stressing the importance of them, particularly for disasters. So just a little bit of background. We at WMO work on the entire value chain that is looking at extreme weather and climate events. And that really, when we think about the ways in which ICTs are involved in that, it really, they cut across the entire value chain. So when we are looking at observations, that’s clearly something that we’re really reliant on technologies, but all the way through then how we share that data across the countries, across regions, across national borders. And then that data is really used not only for national sort of monitoring of extremes once they’ve already occurred, but really to help then feed into models that help us understand when extremes are going to occur. And the more data that we have, and the better we’re able to share that using ICTs, the stronger those models become, which are then what enable us to have sort of products that are on the ground that give warnings, that are then where we see sort of our low-cost models. local weather forecasters telling us, or now really more our phones for younger generations, to this telling us what to anticipate, which then is what enables us to really make effective decisions, not only from our day-to-day on sort of what to wear and how to be prepared in case there’s gonna be extreme weather, you know, we’re in a very rainy Geneva, but also at a bigger level. So then we’re gonna anticipate extremes if there’s gonna be floods, if there’s going to be droughts, really the better and stronger our data is the more we’re enabled to take effective decisions. And really all of that is underpinned by strong data and communications. So at WMO, we sort of have two branches, which is our infrastructure branch and our services. And so our infrastructure is really what you would anticipate it to be, which is that it’s really looking more at the sort of physical side of how do we receive data and to get an exchange that information on climate and weather observations. So this is kind of a complex graphic, but we can really see the main WMO programs within our infrastructure division that are looking at global observations. So why goes, which then are fed into our information system with, to be processed into predictions and other services. So all of these different services are really showing and stressing the importance of ICTs because we’re needing to communicate across country borders, across different levels of communication, balance climate and weather data and sharing that information. And it’s only then with the ability to share all of these observations that we’re able to get really solid products. And of course, then that is what are feeding our early warning systems. ICTs are absolutely critical in every step of the component. So if we look at, as I said, observations and monitoring are sort of the first step of understanding when an extreme is gonna happen. We need to have the data in order to feed the models in order to forecast them. But also of course, then ICTs are really sort of essential for the warning components. I’m sure many of us online and in the room will have received some sort of extreme event warning, hopefully on our phones or on a computer. And then that’s really what enables us to share that information. But even then we’re reliant on ICTs in terms of sharing about extremes. And that’s actually the impact information is often where we get sort of more from that side of social media and sharing in our media, really getting to understand what the impact of an extreme was. And of course, then all of this really feeds back into better improving disaster risk knowledge. So the work that I really do with extremes that highlights for me the importance of ICTs is on the monitoring of extremes. So we do, it’s in my team less on the forecasting and more at looking back. sort of retrospectively. And we’ve seen a really big shift in our ability to report on extremes happening by better implementing communication tools, particularly by digitizing our extreme events survey. So we used to ask members to fill out information about extremes in their country via an online survey, which, sorry, via PDF, which was very tedious and difficult process. We tended not to get a lot of responses back from members, and that was what fed into our global reports, which you can see on the right-hand side of the screen. But as we’ve transitioned to more of a digital platform, we’ve really found that we’ve gotten a lot more responses, which you can see the little triangles sort of showing all around the world about country reported extremes. And that’s also enabled us to better share this information by better utilizing online platforms. So just in terms of some key milestones for us over the past couple of years, in terms of WMO’s products, really the first one really came from the breakdown of the GCOE’s Climate Essential Variables, which help us to really break down the climate system into manageable component parts. And from there, it was just a couple of years later that we started the Severe Weather Forecasting Program, which is really looking at exactly the goal of, goal number three of Action Line C7, which is to utilize the best technologies possible in order to best forecast oncoming extreme events. And that program is still in place today, which then the experiences from that program really did feed into the guidelines. We’ve heard a lot already in the presentation today about the importance of guidelines. And these guidelines really are helping countries and WMO members to develop services that are based on multi-hazard forecasts and to be more impact-based, so that when we are forecasting extremes, we’re really, their members are able to do that for multiple types of events and really doing it in terms of the impact that’s going to occur. Then the biggest one I think that I would stress in terms of the. conversation today is really the unified data policy that we passed at WMO in 2021 and this was huge because for our members climate and weather data is often it’s very valuable it’s something that they can get paid for and it is something that a lot are often hesitant to share because it can be a really good for them but as we saw in the beginning slides sharing of climate data and climate and weather data is really essential in order to inform proper forecasts and so what we managed to do is to help our members understand that in sharing their data and creating an infrastructure through the WIF the information system they are really helping each other and all members can benefit and that was approved by all of our members in 2021 to share their data of course there are still challenges but that was really a milestone in terms of really moving toward a future of open data for all in 2022 then we as I said we digitized our stream events survey which is helping us keep better track on an annual basis of extremes and everyone will be aware of the UN agenda for 20 in 2023 that we were mandated for early warnings for all so just from across the organization some challenges that we’ve really seen are of course the first the quality and affordability and access to ICCs we often take them for granted especially when we’re based sort of here in Geneva and there are robots happening at the AI for Good but there are still many places in the world that struggle to to maintain basic observations and they’re having basic equipment and infrastructure to even have very basic data and observations let alone to then be to be sharing it in the way that we need to so particularly for least developed countries we really find that there’s a very broad lack of access that’s seen also across locations and gender so really it’s being mindful of the fact that there are so many different types of populations that are not necessarily having access to the same quality ICCs as the developed world then the secondly a big challenge that we see is that there is often a challenge with the uptake of the tools that are available in the organizational competency so Brain drain is a really big issue for a lot of our members, and many NMHSs, or National Hydrological and Meteorological Services, who are our members, particularly in least developed countries, do face really serious shortages, which then don’t enable them to share their information and their data because they just don’t have the capacity organizationally to get as much done as a MetService that might have more data and more capacity. And then finally is the collection and sharing of impact information. So the reason in the beginning I said that that impact was in parentheses is because it’s not necessarily our mandate to collect impact information, but it is of course very important for us and something that we really struggle to get from different UN organizations, from FAO for example, IOM, and then a number of other sources such as EMDAT, etc. So really collecting and sharing this information and making it widely accessible is something that we still really struggle with and that we would like to see better improved in our sort of future implementation of the Action Line. So I’ll just end on some trends and opportunities. Of course the most important one is the Early Warning for All Initiative, and this is because it’s coming from the UN Secretary General, it’s really huge and has come with a significant amount of resources to really help us close that last mile and making sure that everybody is covered by 2027 with an early warning system. Moving forward then after that, I think what’s a very big opportunity will be the implementation of WISC 2.0, which is the end of the year. And our goal is to have more than 90% migrated by 2030, so that would mean that almost 100% of our data is being shared. And then of course we would be remiss not to talk about the opportunities that are coming with AI and big data. So for us particularly, looking at the monitoring of extremes is to see how we can utilize AI better to pull in impact information from different sources, from media, from reports, and then also to better inform Met Services when it seems that there is an extreme happening in their country that they can then better inform us. And I just want to flag to all of you that the 2024 version of our report, United in Science, will be really focusing on innovation and the future of weather, climate, and water sciences. And so keep an eye out for that. Should be released right around, if not at, the summit of the future, which will really be digging into what trends we’ll see for WMO and climate and water sciences. So I’ll stop there. Thanks so much.

Noemie Pralat:
Thank you so much, Claire, for this very comprehensive overview. I think, I don’t know if there’s a session after this one, but I guess we can dedicate at least five minutes to any other trend opportunities and, or any questions, pressing question or trend opportunity that you might have. And then we can turn this into a coffee chat if you’d like. There’s two questions.

Audience:
I have a question regarding your presentation, sir. In the beginning, you said, you mentioned about the transitioning from physical products to digital products because of the sustainability. And my question is, regarding this transition, the digital storage give us the idea of unlimited storage, while the physical, like the storage give us more like a perception of physical, so limited. Isn’t there a risk of harming more the planet than helping us? Storing like data is not as free as we might think.

David Jensen:
You’re absolutely right. Sorry, go ahead. Please go ahead. You’re absolutely right. I mean, there are physical impacts associated with data centers, no question about it. And that’s one of the issues that we have to get a handle on exactly is how do you measure those impacts? But if you compare sort of impact for impact between a data center and how many, you know, it has to, it has to store one copy of a CD, for example, or, you know, a music versus millions of copies in the, in the, in the real world, the impact could be significantly less. And we would predict it would be significantly less, even with the electricity, you know, the, the water consumption, electricity consumption, the greenhouse gas emissions, it’s likely to be more efficient to have, you know, one physical or one digital copy than millions of physical copies. But you’re right. It’s there are impacts that we have to be aware of. And that’s exactly the point we need to raise to try to quantify that and try to figure out, you know, what’s the net benefit and how do we, how do we as consumers become more sort of literate, literate, literate, get the word right, literate. Thank you. In, in consuming digital products and services while minimizing our footprint. So you’re totally right. But it, it is less, I would say, you know, pound for pound or whatever you want to call it, whatever the expression is, it is less, but Clary, you want to come in and share your perspective on that question?

Claire Ransom:
No, sorry. I was just, I wanted to clarify if it was for you or for me. And I think that was the perfect answer.

Audience:
Thanks. Horst Kramers, I have one and a half questions. I start with a half question. For me, to the waste domain, also energy production waste belongs to it. It’s not a trivial amount of waste. And that is waste from atomic energy production, from wind energy production, and the traditional ones, I say. So I would be very happy in some wording and in some action under this line, to include this to make that clear that this belongs, because it’s in the interest not only of many people, but also for the health system and for other subsidiary bodies that work in the name of information society. The other question would be, well, actually, Claire, you discussed for that paragraph three, and I’m very happy that you delivered such much interesting details on your computer system for the climate domain. But the paragraph is, as I read it, it’s written, worded by copy from the Sendai Framework, and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction has these natural and man-made disasters. It’s clearly also in that paragraph three. And if WMO maybe is not working in man-made disasters, who, my question is, to whom of you, I can put the question, where are the other disasters covered? Even UNDRR was not mentioned. It’s housed in the same building of WMO. So they are not only neighbors, they are co-housing people. So I would be happy if UNDRR would be more on the table, because it would fill the other part of that paragraph three, and it is an important one.

Claire Ransom:
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is very much taken from the Sendai Framework, and you’ll know then that UNDRR is the sort of parent of the Sendai Framework. So they certainly are doing work, I think, more in man-made disasters. But moving forward in terms of the development of these action lines, I do think that they would be a very welcome partner, because they also could be better placed. They’re an organization that we do work very closely with, and especially with the early warning for All, they are one of the most critical organizations that is implementing one of the pillars of early warning for all. So we do work with them, but I think that they would be welcome in the future of these action lines, you’re right.

Audience:
Thank you for that welcome. I hope someone will write it up and give them all regards.

David Jensen:
I think we’ve all given a fairly kind of rosy picture about progress in the action lines. But let’s be clear, the action has not been bold enough, it hasn’t been fast enough, it hasn’t been impactful enough. So while there has been sort of some progress, we need to scale it up much, much more going forward, I would argue. So I think we need to figure out how to increase the level of ambition, the level of funding, the political will, all these issues going forward in the WSIS plus 20 review and in the revision of the action lines, somehow we just need more operational capacity to go forward. Because if we’re talking, I mean, we’ve had this framework now for 20 plus years. If you look at some of the domains, the progress is just very, very slow, especially the global scale, especially in LDCs and places without a huge amount of financial capacity and otherwise, it is slow. So I don’t want to give the impression that everything has been successful. We’ve had some successes, but they’ve been hard gains, you know, hard fought wins. And we do need more resources going forward to take forward, you know, the goals of the action line.

Noemie Pralat:
So we took good notes of the suggestions. Thank you very much. And I think you had, let’s make it the last question, probably.

Audience:
Yeah, yeah, just a quick comment, because the WSIS action line was first initiated in 2003, and it has almost 20 years. So I think situation changed a lot. And there are some new trend we need to pay some attention to the new trend. Like now everyone can get a For example, the social media may have a big influence on people’s behavior, which can have a big influence on the environment, which is indirect, but it exists. For example, now we have software like Zoom, we can have online meetings, something like this, and this maybe can cut down transport emissions. So I think maybe we should now pay extra attention to the new trends, to the new technologies.

David Jensen:
And just to say, just to go back to WSIS plus 20 again, when WSIS I’d say was first adopted in 2003, I’d say it was visionary. And I’d say a lot of what was adopted was actually right on the mark. Like it was really good. And if you look at the environmental components, they’ve actually stood the test of time. But as you say, the technology now is evolving so quickly that our governance frameworks are still evolving very slowly. And so there’s this disconnect between the evolution of tech and the evolution of our governance. And one is going at kind of gigahertz and one is still going at sort of analog pace. And that’s the bridge we have to figure out how to cross is how do we bring that governing system to govern at the same rate as the technology is evolving. But as you say, the big trends right now, misinformation and how that’s polarizing society, the footprint of AI, digital product passports, these are all huge opportunities that need to be reflected in whatever comes forward from the global digital compact and in whatever comes forward in the WSIS plus 20 review.

Audience:
Thank you.

Noemie Pralat:
Okay. So to conclude, we hope we’ve given not only, not only, you know, the idealistic picture with trends, emerging opportunities. We’ve also painted, obviously, some more realistic statistics, but from which we can, that we can turn. probably into fertile ground for all of these seeds that we’ve shown today. Thank you very much for your inputs and active participation. That was very much appreciated and thank you very much to our online participants too. Let’s hope that we can bring this forward beyond 2025 and yeah, have a nice rest of your day. Thank you very much. Thanks everyone.