Virtual travel and digital carbon footprint
ARTICLES | Jul 26, 2024
The pandemic and digital technology have led us to work more online. We travel less, reducing environmental issues such as PM2.5 from transport. But online lifestyles have impacts you mightn’t expect…
Pre-covid research forecast that information and communication technologies will account for 20% of the world's energy use by 2030. It will use electricity equivalent to 1% of global demand, more than those in many countries.
The carbon footprint from these technologies has already soared to 3.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
If more people use artificial intelligence (AI), we’ll need massive amounts of data and rapid access to it. A study by researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that just a single AI training could emit 626,000 pounds (284 tons) of carbon dioxide, almost 5 times the pollutants emitted by a car in the United States over its lifetime.
When the whole world enters the metaverse era, technologies like VR and AI will become essential for deep neural networks to track user hand movements or deep learning to follow commands with eye-tracking.
Humans from now on will use more energy and emit more pollution. A 2020 report by researchers at Lancaster University also predicts that by 2030 up to 30% of console gamers might have moved to cloud-platform games for better picture and sound quality. We are currently used to 730p or 1080p high-resolution but cloud games will provide 4K. Of course, cloud technology is one of the critical elements of the metaverse. It has also been speculated that an increase in screen resolution alone could increase carbon emissions by 30%.
Physical travel might decrease. But we need to watch our time in the virtual world and activities in the metaverse.
Implications for the future
- Electronics companies need to seriously focus on designing hardware products that save global energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions from the design process to the disposal of the product when the product wears out.
- Governments and private companies need to focus more on the Net Zero Emissions goal to create positive change and sustainability.
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