If nothing is done, the digital carbon footprint could triple by 2050

Televisions, smartphones, laptops, small connected objects, hard drives… the French use more than 800 million digital devices. By 2030, and especially by 2050, the use we will have of it will certainly be very different from the one we make of it today. But one thing is certain, if nothing is done to reduce it, the sector’s carbon footprint (linked to greenhouse gas emissions) could increase by 45% by the end of the decade and almost triple by 2050.

This is the alarming projection made by experts from the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) and the Electronic Communications Regulatory Authority (Arcep) in a study published on Monday. Digital, which rejected around 17 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2020, according to calculations made by Ademe and Arcep in a previous report published in early 2022 could thus emit, thirty years later, nearly 50 million tonnes.