Top 10 Countries Using IT to Reduce Carbon Emissions

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Deploying information technology — from software to wireless networks to computing — is supposed to be able to reduce 15 percent of global carbon emissions by 2020, according to the Climate Group, through things like creating smarter grids, buildings and transportation. But some countries’ governments are doing better than others at supporting the use of information technology to build low-carbon infrastructure, according to a report from the trade group the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) on Monday.

GeSI reports on the top 10 countries relying on IT to reduce carbon emissions, and there are few surprises on the list. Japan, Germany and Denmark lead the list (not so surprising), while Romania and India made the bottom ninth and 10th slots (nice work), and the U.S. didn’t make the list at all (boo). Despite the U.S. leading the way in IT production and creation, the U.S. government isn’t being a leader when it comes to using it for reducing carbon emissions, says GeSI.

The GeSI put together the list in the run up to COP 17 (the United Nations annual conference on climate change), which will take place in Durban, South Africa late this year. The GeSI says the criteria for choosing the list is based on a variety of factors, including integrating these IT technologies with low-carbon applications, and also using IT to meet the UN carbon reduction goals (probably why the U.S. is lacking on that one). Here are the top 10:

Rank Country Score
1 Japan 85
2 Denmark 65
3 Germany 65
4 Ireland 59
5 European Union 55
6 Netherlands 55
7 Australia 53
8 Finland 53
9 Romania 53
10 India 44

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