The Environment and ICT Working Group

Welcome to our Website

We work on the impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on the environment. This work is closely related to the new field of "environmental informatics", as explained in this book. As a Civil Society working group we have contributed input to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

• 2011 June: outcome document
• 2011 May 18: E-Environment Day at WSIS Forum, Geneva, with remote participation
• 2011 Mar: Working Group on Improvements to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to meet in Geneva from 24–25 March 2011 (by invitation only)
• 2011 Jan.: We hope the Tunisian people's revolution will take them toward a more democratic future. 
• 2011 Jan.: Call for proposals for the writing of commissioned case studies on the topic of ICTs, climate change and development.  Proposals should be submitted by February 2011
• 2011 Jan.: Markus Kummer joins the Internet Society as VP for Public Policy. 
• 2010 Sept. 17:  Workshop Number 106: Cloud computing for leaner and greener IT infrastructures in governments (and businesses), from 10 to 13 hours, Vilnius, Lithuania
• 2010 Sept. 16:  Meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change (DCICC) –  from 16.30 to 18.30 hours, Vilnius, Lithuania
• 2010 Sept.12: Geneva or New York: deadline for comments on the next venue for the WSIS Forum 2011
• 2010 July:  A thesis that UN/ITU versus ICANN is advanced by Phillip Hallam-Baker.
• 2010 April: EuroDIG 2010 was held in Madrid / Spain. The Pan-European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) is an open platform for informal and inclusive discussion and exchange on public policy issues related to Internet Governance (IG) between stakeholders from all over Europe.
• The fourth annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Meeting was held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt on 15-18 November 2009.
• The privacy topic is also dealt with on this new Wiki
• Slideshow "Overview of WSIS-related activities, second semester 2008" by Charles Geiger, Special Adviser to the CSTD, Geneva and Santiago de Chile, November 2008
• The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has launched "a major new initiative" on the overall topic of ICTs and climate change; it organized symposia on ICTs and Climate Change in London  in June and a focus group meeting in Geneva in December 2008. 
• The ITU Secretary-General has issued a Declaration on Climate Change in the time between Telecom World 2009 and the Copenhagen climate conference
• As of 20.10.09 the ITU Working Group "Dynamic Coalition" has drafted a Statement on Climate Change and the Internet in PDF
  
• Civil society continues to lobby the ITU despite resistance. The debate in December 2008 is summarized here.
• The 3rd GigaNet Annual Symposium on Internet Governance was held in India on 2nd Dec. 2008
• Klaus Toepfer, former German Minister of the Environment and former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), speaking on Green Information Technology at a conference in September 2007
• The International Institute of Sustainable Development IISD has considered an interpretation of SD in conjunction with the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) emphasising the social aspects over the environment, and has produced papers and a PDF book on Internet Governance and Sustainable Development.
• A new follow-up project is called Africa at Home.
• For the Swiss follow-up work on WSIS see this link.
• International follow-up work on WSIS is being done by Science & Technology for Development (StDev), a gateway to UN system-wide information on science and technology for development. This is in keeping with our intent, as we have always called for a reconciliation of WSIS (Geneva + Tunis) with UNCED (Rio + Johannesburg). Now at least there are two UN bodies which could theoretically be working on the case. The two summits WSIS and UNCED corrrespond to the two bodies, Stdev and CSD, which are described together in an online book as UN follow-up bodies: "The CSD has served largely as a continuation of UNCED" ("Knowledge and Diplomacy: Science Advice in the United Nations System" (2002), Chapter 4 "Structure of Science Advice in the United Nations System Today", page 34 )
• Phase 2 of WSIS took place in Tunis. We participated in a science event the program of which is here.
• At that time WSIS consultations took place on two levels:
  • The Group of the Friends of the Chair [of PrepCom3, GFC] summed up WSIS and relating it to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Here is a statement with environmental relevance by Jean Louis Fullsack, CSDPTT: he agreed with the ITU-UNESCO proposal, noting he has been supporting this option since the beginning. But he explained that the issue of energy supply needs urgent action. As a prerequisite for the development of ICTs, we have to find more renewable energy sources. Consequently one of the action lines should be coordinated by UNEP," from recent informal consultations of the GFC on 13 June 2005 documented in this RTF file .
    The concept of the "multistakeholder approach" was hotly discussed, as the vagueness with which it is invoked has been used to exclude civil society (CS) participation on occasions in the past.
  • The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), itself one of the results of WSIS Phase 1, is also discussing the multistakeholder approach. This is documented in two places: Issue 18 of the governance list dated 17 June 2005, and in audio files
• Phase 1 of WSIS took place in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2003. As for the results of WSIS Phase 1, you can peruse the following, with the most recent first:
• Sept. 2004: Release of the UN ICT Task Force Series 5 - Internet Governance: A Grand Collaboration, edited and introduced by Don MacLean. Downloadable here. It contains articles from the ICT Task Force Global Forum on Internet Governance, New York, March 25-26, 2004. Its 392 pages include chapters by Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, Markus Kummer, Stefaan Verhulst, William Drake, George Sadowsky, Veni Markovski, Karl Auerbach, Bertrand de la Chapelle and others.
• an introductory draft summary of work on the Internet Governance issue by Wolfgang Kleinwaechter (in PDF), which along with the funding issue comprise the two most challenging problems that remain to be resolved before or with Phase 2 in 2005.
• April 6, 2004: New Internet governance group "does not have the mandate of changing the world."(article in NZZ)
• a chart of civil society structure made by Chris Nicol (in PDF). Chris is the author of the ICT policy handbook. Chris passed away on August 29th, 2005, a victim of cancer. Here is his photo and memorial Wiki.
• For an Overview of Civil Society Elements and the groups working on other topics, please click here.
• Here you can order the book entitled "How to Lobby at Intergovernmental Meetings" by Felix Dodds. 2 pages of PDF
• Like the various discussion lists maintained by civil society and catalogued above, recently a discussion has been initiated by a project partner of one of our members. He warns that "the danger is that [WSIS] will be forgotten even more quickly than last year’s World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. That would be a pity. The potential contribution that the appropriate use of ICT could make is vast". Read and comment on Opendemocracy.

Here is our first statement given at the second preparatory meeting, PrepCom 2, jointly by our partners Finkbeiner, Ruddy, Sippel and Weiler (see sections below "Core members" and "Update"). Our second statement was delivered to governments on 27th Feb.03. After the synthesis document was released, we issued this reminder to drafters of what parts of our input had not yet been included in the final declaration and action plan. Here is the current version of our input.

We value highly the scientific advisory capacity of such institutions as the Intergovernmental Panel on Cimate Change (IPCC) to United Nations negotiators. In the US the work of the IPCC was supported by the

UNEP's Governing Council has recently initiated a process to strengthen the scientific base of UNEP, referred to as "the Science Initiative."

On the national level in Switzerland we are participating in a new tripartite task force, and we have this report of the first meeting at the Swiss Office of Communication.

We have complained to drafters that the term "sustainable development" (SD) has become inflated. SD is explained in an entertaining way in the "dashboard" simulator. Try it out for yourself here. There is a larger collection of sustainability "dashboards" here.

Environment Caucus

We also serve as the Environment Caucus set up under the Civil Society Coordinating Group (CSCG) following PrepCom 1 of WSIS. The CSCG is explained in more detail on http://www.crisinfo.org/ in this MS Word file.

The caucus model originally proposed by CRIS is now combined with the "family model" concept at the Executive Secretariat. Two graphic representations of the various bodies involved have been done from a critical standpoint, constituting almost 5 MB in PDF, of which the second one at the bottom of this file is more instructive.

Many caucuses exist in various forms; see this original list of "Civil Society Caucuses /Groups who have expressed desire to develop content," i.e. input to the draft declaration and action plan that heads of state are expected to sign in December 2003. This list of "Civil Society Caucuses /Groups is more current.

"Families" work with the new Civil Society Bureau to ensure that leading, must-have NGOs are involved when input to WSIS is solicited from NGOs through the caucuses. Here is Alain Clerc's official note dated 22 April 2003 on the topic of families: "Establishment of a Civil Society Bureau: A historic event!" The CS Bureau works through an emailing listserve with these public archives. Many of us are considered part of the "science and technology family" in civil society; currently one of us is from the private sector. The new family model for procedural issues has the family organized for science and technology led by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU); ICSU has a part of its Website devoted to WSIS (see also the section headed "EMPA / SIT links" below), and the World Foundation of Engineering Organizations.

The civil society group said to possess the ultimate legitimacy, the CS plenary, speaks through a listserv, archives of which are publicly available here. Subscribing to Plenary is possible here. There is a list of WSIS lists at http://www.wsis-cs.org/ A list not listed there, providing for "discussion of governance-related topics around WSIS by the NGO of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPRS), including global communication governance and Internet governance" can be subscribed to here.

Write to us expressing your views on the Environment and ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), and whether you'd like to receive occasional postings from our e-mailing list. For instance, you could tell us what you propose to contribute to our initiative, and to receive from it. Contact: www_wsis@web.ethz.ch

Our Website is structured in the following sections, from each of which you can return here:

• Core members
• Partners of ours associated with the United Nations
• News from the world press on content issues relevant to our group such as electronic waste
• Links from our core members in English, deutsch and français including "Sustainability in Electronic 'Environments'"
• Update on how we have participated in the preparatory process leading up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and how the process has been developing in general; see also Calendar below
• Documents that we have issued as part of the WSIS process
• Calendar of events with relevance to our group such as WSIS dates and scientific workshops

Do you want to participate in WSIS CO2 neutrally? You can find more information on how at www.clipp.org/wsis or at www.myclimate.org or in Germany at the Gold Standard www.atmosfair.de, in The Netherlands www.businessforclimate.nl and in the UK www.climatecare.org to mention a few. www.myclimate.org

Get listed in the European DataBank of Persons working in the field of Sustainable Development, www.sd-eudb.net
Consult this online directory of green organizations in Geneva in PDF

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Contact: www_wsis@web.ethz.ch

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any views expressed on these Webpages do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions at which the group members are employed.

URL http://www.wsis.ethz.ch

Update: 3rd June 2011