| |MARCH 202019DIGITIZATION OF ENERGY FOR GREEN WORLDThought CentralBy Anil Chaudhry, MD & Zone President, Schneider ElectricD igitalization is key to snap the link between higher GDP growth and rising carbon trails. Higher econom-ic growth is a perennial imperative world-wide. However, industrialization, urban-isation and modern development are all accelerating global warming and climate change ­ with disastrous consequences. Clearly, there is no alternative to individ-uals, institutions and industries collec-tively reducing their carbon trail if global warming is to be contained initially and reversed later. While multiple solutions are being pursued in lowering the planet's carbon trail, a single, overarching stratagem is required to make a substantial, sustained impact towards this goal. In recent years, it is increasingly apparent that digitaliza-tion harbours the potential to reverse the dangerous trend of higher growth leading to higher carbon trails. REVERSING GLOBAL WARMINGThe link between industrialization and global warming cannot be denied or down played. Going by empirical evidence, a one percent rise in global GDP triggers a 0.5 percent increase in carbon emissions, contributing to resource scarcity. A World Economic Forum report highlights that by 2030, present business practices can con-tribute to a worldwide demand-supply gap of eight billion metric tons (MT) in natural resources. In turn, some USD 4.5 trillion of economic growth will be lost by 2030.One needs to view the role of digital transformation in combating CO emis-sions in this context. According to a World Economic Forum report, between 2016 and 2025, it is estimated that digitaliza-tion can potentially prevent an estimated 26 billion MT of total CO2 emissions from three sectors, i.e., electricity (15.8 billion MT), logistics (9.9 billion MT), and auto-motive (540 million MT). Incidentally, en-tire Europe is expected to emit an almost equal amount of emissions in the same pe-riod. Such CO2 reductions could then be a game changer.
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