Climate Change and Energy Crisis

Study Notes

Greenhouse emissions, such as CO2 and methane, cause global warming with catastrophic consequences on the planet and human society.
The Kyoto protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established in 1997 indicates that mainly developed countries are responsible for the current levels of greenhouse gases.
The 2011 Conference of the Parties (COP) 17 climate change conference warned that measures taken so far are not sufficient to avoid global warming beyond 2°C.

Approximately 50% of the world petroleum resources are already exploited, creating major obstacles for power supply with negative consequences on the economy.
Energy pricing, influenced by fuel prices, is showing an increasing trend according to the forecast study performed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy.

The use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has become an essential part of human daily lifestyle, allowing social and business interaction on a local and global scale.
ICT accounts for 5.7% of the world's electricity consumption and 1.8% of CO2 emissions, stressing the need for enhancing energy efficiency in ICT products.
The mobile broadband market is the most dynamic, with 2.1 billion subscribers globally, and is accompanied by a massive growth of the number of user devices, networks, and services, raising significant cost and sustainability concerns.

Mobile access traffic is projected to increase 89 times between 2010 and 2020, with wireline access and core networks carrying the majority of user traffic.
Video consumption is a main contributor to significantly higher traffic volumes, with Cisco Internet traffic projection forecasting that in 2015 video consumption will reach one million video minutes per second.

The tremendous data growth raises new economic and sustainability challenges for network operators, who face the need to expand their deployed network infrastructure to cope with increasing traffic demands.