The internet also harms the climate: COP conference websites multiply CO₂ emissions - study
Kyiv • UNN
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that COP climate conference websites significantly increased CO₂ emissions. From 1995 to 2014, average emissions increased by more than 13,000 percent, exceeding the average for other websites.
The World Climate Conference is looking for ways to reduce climate-damaging emissions. At the same time, researchers from the University of Edinburgh claim that the conference's websites, on the contrary, have been a tool that has produced an increase in CO₂ emissions in recent years. UNN reports this with reference to Spiegel.
Details
Ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, scientists warned of a significant increase in CO₂ emissions in recent years. The activities of the UN climate conference websites also contribute to this.
An analysis by scientists from the University of Edinburgh shows that between the first conference in 1995 and the 2014 conference in Baku, the average emissions of COP conference websites increased by more than 13,000 percent.
For their analysis, scientists examined data from web archives to assess changes in the carbon footprint of websites over a 30-year period. Their findings show that emissions remained relatively low until COP14 in 2008.
However, after COP15, emissions rose sharply, with websites emitting an average of more than 2.4g of carbon per visit, and some significantly more.
The average website emits 0.36g of carbon per page view
The increase is partly due to increased computing power and internet usage. But the carbon footprint of climate conference websites is still significantly higher than the average for websites.
The increase corresponds to the growing use of content on COP websites, which requires more computing power.
The study shows that the carbon costs of digital presence are often ignored even by those who should care for and protect the environment
"We hope that our recommendations and our tool will help institutions identify and address this issue," she added.
Recall
Brazil has allowed oil giant Petrobras to drill near the Amazon, which could make the country one of the world's largest oil producers. Environmentalists warn of the consequences of deep-water drilling and call this decision sabotage of the global COP30 climate summit.