The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has suggested that telecom operators should declare the carbon emissions from their network every six months.

Based on the details of footprints declared, service providers should aim at carbon emission reduction targets at 8 per cent by the year 2012-13, 12 per cent by 2014-15, 17 per cent by 2016-17 and 25 per cent by 2018-19.

This is part of TRAI's the recommendations on “Approach Towards Green Telecommunications”. With increasing pervasiveness of mobile phones and the widespread adoption of information and communications technology (ICT) worldwide, the ICT sector is expected to contribute around 3 per cent of the global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) by the year 2020. While globally the telecommunication sector contributes around 0.7 per cent of the global GHG emissions, the corresponding figure in India is one per cent.

“A phased programme should be put in place by the telecom service providers to have their cell sites, particularly in the rural areas, powered by hybrid renewable sources including wind energy, solar energy, fuel cells or a combination thereof. The eventual goal under this phased programme is to ensure that around 50 per cent of all towers in the rural areas are powered by hybrid renewable sources by the year 2015,” TRAI said.

It has suggested that in the next five years, at least 50 per cent of all rural towers and 33 per cent of the urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power (Renewable Energy Technologies -RET) + Grid power) by 2015, while all rural towers and 50 per cent of urban towers are to be hybrid powered by 2020.

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