Greenhouse gas emissions of the Information and Communications Industry (ICT)which includes computers and phones but also infrastructure like data centerscould grow from about 1 percent of global emissions in 2007 to over 14 percent in 2040, researchers at McMaster University in Canada report in the Journal of Cleaner Production. Thats more than half the current carbon footprint of the entire transportation sector.
Among devices, smartphones will be worse for the environment. By 2020, their carbon footprint will exceed that of desktop computers, laptops, and displays, the study shows.
To gauge ICT emissions, the duo analyzed the energy it takes to produce and operate consumer devices, as well as the energy it takes to run telecom infrastructure. They found that data centers and telecom networks are energy hogs. Operating them results in about two-thirds of ICT emissions, growing from 215 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007 to 764 megatons in 2020.
Meanwhile, a smartphones energy cost comes from production. Making a phone accounts for 8595 percent of its annual carbon footprint because manufacturing its electronics and mining the metals that go into them is energy-intensive.
The analysis showed that smartphone emissions will go up from 17 to 125 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent between 2010 and 2020. Thats an increase from 4 percent to 11 percent of total ICT emissions. This footprint is driven by the pithy two years that a smartphone is used on average. Sadly, less than 1 percent of smartphones get recycled, this and other studies have found.
So making phones is really intensive carbon emissions.
Huh!
Guess who makes the phones? China.
Who buys them? Rich people in the USA including climate activists.