Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

State representatives of 195 countries are gathering in Le Bourget, Paris to reach an agreement to limit the temperature rise within 2 degree by this century. The efforts of non-state-level participants at COP21 have also been extra-ordinary compared to those of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009.

According to UNFCCC and the We Mean Business Coalition, more than 4,000 companies, investors, regions and cities have committed to set emission reduction goals, 61 companies and investors decided to go 100 percent renewable, and 117 investors promised they will measure emissions in their portfolio. However, how will authorities, civil society, and the public monitor these carbon commitments and propel the carbon reduction efforts?

One of the answers may lie in the rising use of information and communication technology (ICT). According to a new report by Huawei, it's never been more urgent to provide ways to fill the gap between digitally connected populations and those cut off from the Internet. Seeing the existing digital gap in the implementation of current climate solutions, digital enablement in a climate constrained world is also urgent for the implementation of the future Paris agreement.

Enabled by digital technologies such as mobile broadband, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things, future climate solutions can be implemented in a cost-reduced, effectiveness-enhanced and transparency-increased manner.

Fortunately, the application of digital technologies in climate change related efforts has been visible at various occasions of COP21. At the "Green Digital Charter: Smart city solutions for energy efficiency and climate change" panel hosted by the Cities & Regions Pavilion, mayors from Bristol, Warsaw, and Malmo shared a consensus of the significance of ICT in transforming their cities onto a low-carbon path.

As the 2015 European Green Capital, Bristol is on track to meet its ambitious 40 percent carbon reduction target by 2020 from the 2005 baseline year. The city is among 49 cities from 21 European countries to sign the Green Digital Charter.

On the other side of Eurasia, Chinese cities are also embracing ICT into their low-carbon city efforts. Zhenjiang is one of the pioneering cities. It is a national low-carbon pilot city as well as the only city in Jiangsu Province on the list of ecological civilization pilot city. At the "Zhenjiang Day" session hosted at the China Pavilion, Xie Zhenhua, China's special representative on climate change affairs, praised the low-carbon efforts by Zhenjiang. The city is one of the first in China to build a city-wide digital platform that monitors carbon emissions from major industrial factories in the city.

In September 2015, a number of Chinese cities pledged to peak their carbon emissions in advance of China's national target of 2030 at the first US-China Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities Summit in Los Angeles. Digital enablement will be a key component of these cities' climate change plans to equip them with tools to understand baseline situation, analyze the data on energy and environment, and eventually make responsible decisions in a scientific and efficient way.

Though digital companies themselves also need innovative ways to mitigate their own climate-related risks, the potential of the ICT sector to enable other sectors to reduce carbon emissions in the areas such as electricity grids, logistics, building design and use, and industrial motor systems, as well as to enable behavior change contributing toward overall dematerialization, has yet to be fully explored by the industry.

When the world leaders leave Paris, they will look to the ICT sector for smart solutions to implement the future agreement. Though we have witnessed a number of international efforts such as Global e-Sustainability Initiative and Yale's Data-Driven Environmental Solutions Group in enhancing the readiness of the industry to take on this challenge, it will take time for the emergence of new business models and successful cases.

Clement Huaweilang Dai works for IBM Energy & Utilities and Xiaochen Zhang is an associate director on climate change at BSR. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn