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Software giant Microsoft called Monday on the IT industry to reduce
its carbon footprint as CeBIT, the world's largest tech fair, kicked
off in Germany with a focus on climate change.
"When you look at non-travel power
consumption in the world today perhaps PCs and IT is one of the most
rapidly growing power consumers on the planet," Microsoft chief
executive Steve Ballmer told a news conference.
"We think we have a real responsibility as
well as real innovation that can really help focus in the
opportunities to reduce power consumption by the IT industry."
Ballmer trumpeted what he said were Microsoft's
own efforts to lower its customers' as well as its own energy
consumption.
An accompanying video included shots of
mountains and lakes and Microsoft executives talking against a
background of trees and waterfalls.
Other firms among CeBIT's 5,500 exhibitors were
also making much of their green credentials for the trade fair which
opens its doors to the public on Tuesday.
But Greenpeace was on hand to sort out what it
called the "greenwash" from the genuine.
The environmental pressure group vowed in
Hanover to "cut through the corporate green speak and see which
companies and products are on the cutting edge of environmental
innovation."
Worldwide Internet use needs the equivalent of
14 power stations to power all the PCs and servers, producing the
same amount of carbon emissions as the entire airline industry,
according to German magazine Stern.
And for consumers, and in particular for
businesses, rising electricity prices make using greener technology
not also better for the planet but also for the wallet.
Germany's biggest web hosting company for
instance, Berlin-based Strato -- home to 3.5 million websites --
uses the same amount of electricity as a small town, and power is
the firm's single biggest cost item, Stern says.
In going green CeBIT organisers have teamed up
with the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a group comprising
leading tech giants like Intel, Google and Microsoft trying to
lessen the industry's carbon footprint.
And exhibitors at CeBIT will be getting in on
the act.
Deutsche Telekom's stand will be 100 percent
powered by renewable energy, while German PC maker Fujitsu Siemens
will present "Green PCs, intelligent cooling concepts, low
power consumption and innovative power management."
IBM, meanwhile, plans to unveil an
emissions-free computing centre model that uses energy recycling,
relying on a "smart heating and cooling circuit based on an
innovative water-cooling system implemented at chip level."
Monday evening will see the fair opened by
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President Jose
Manuel Barroso and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Relations between the host country and Sarkozy
are rumoured to have been less than warm in recent weeks, but France
is co-host at this year's CeBIT with 150 exhibitors flying the
tricolore and showing off high-tech a la francaise.
Sarkozy and Merkel were due to hold a working
dinner after the opening ceremony aimed at clearing the air after
talk of a fall-out over the French president's project for a new
Mediterranean Union.
-- AFP
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