Huawei hosted a Better World Summit recently in Dubai, that brought together telecom operators from around the world to share insights and discuss ways to achieve the objectives of 5G next-gen networks with environmental sustainability and reaching Net-Zero emissions.

Unlike predecessor technology, 5G is at least 10x faster at launch, unlocks many new use cases from edge computing and network slicing, to scaled IoT deployments not possible with 4G. GlobalData expects 5G services to exceed $USD 640 billion by 2026 and penetration will exceed 50 per cent.

There is a paradox. The rise in data traffic is increasing energy costs and carbon emissions. For example, if the average data traffic, per user, per month reaches 630 Gigabytes by 2030 (industry estimates) and if network efficiency stays the same, then the average power consumption from networks will also increase by at least 10-fold. This runs counter to the goals of the GSMA for Net-Zero by 2040 as well as many individual MNOs with their own ESG targets, often more ambitious than industry targets.