You are here: Home » Green ICT » Applications » The NBN’s Garnaut conundrum

The NBN’s Garnaut conundrum

Tony Chan | October 10, 2008 | 0 Comments

Two prevailing themes at last week’s CommsDay Melbourne Congress’ Green Telecom day were the issue of the impact of the Garnaut report on the telecommunications industry and the role of telecoms in helping other industries reduce their carbon footprint.

While the two themes seem diametrically opposed, as the first addresses the potential impact of a carbon tax on the telecoms industry, and the other, the ability to reduce the carbon use of the rest of the economy, the two are also intrinsically linked.

Perhaps the project that best embodies this paradox is the proposed NBN, designed to provide near-universal high speed broadband. There will be applications that will reduce travel like video calling, enable energy efficient applications such as telematics, as well as a host of others that include e-government, telemedicine – the list goes on. Yet, it will probably be one of the most carbon intensive undertakings for the telecommunications industry this decade, if not this century.

So it’s not difficult to see why Telstra’s executive Director of innovation projects for the digital future, Chloe Munro, had some strong words to say about the Garnaut report and its recommendation for a carbon ‘cap and trade’ system for corporate Australia. In her presentation, she noted with disappointment that the report simply ignores the NBN, and overlooks the critical role of the telecoms industry in reducing the emission of other industries.

To put it simply, one department of the government is asking the telecoms industry to embark on one of the most ambitious projects in history, while another is saying that the company selected for the task will be treated like any other company and may have to pay a overhead, many call it a ‘tax’, for the emissions caused by the project.

More importantly, there seems to be a complete policy disconnect between the part of government that is overseeing the NBN and the part of the government that is proposing to impose a tax on emissions. As it stands now, and without a clear definition of the NBN in light of the ‘cap and trade’ system, neither the full extent of the capital requirement, nor the investment risks, would be clear to the winner of the project.

THE CONUNDRUM DEEPENS
It is not only the NBN project that is caught in this carbon conundrum, but the telecoms industry as a whole. All telecommunications infrastructure uses energy, so is subject to any form of emission ‘cap and trade’ scheme. On the other hand, the ability for telecoms services to replace traditional carbon-intensive activities – travelling for one – results in a huge market opportunity for telecoms operators.

That means the telecoms industry can move a lot of the carbon that is currently being emitted by cars, airplanes and even buildings, onto their network, the NBN for example, in the form of zeros and ones. In order to do that, it will have to build bigger networks to accommodate the extra load, hence driving up emissions. Paradoxically, the energy that telecommunications services can save for their customers is not counted in an operator’s carbon footprint – and there lies the conundrum.

The plain fact is that the rest of the economy can now outsource their emissions to telecoms operators!

There is clearly a need for more study and debate on the role of telecommunications operators in the context of carbon reduction initiatives, both for Australia and the rest of the world. A good start would be more policy alignment between what is being proposed by the Garnaut report and the office of the Communications Minister.

Be Sociable, Share!