Re: Next steps towards a net zero IETF

[Raghu Saxena <[e-mail]>]

That's a pretty interesting note, and one which I think deserves a 
proper discussion. Considering how much more energy use is going towards 
the internet everyday, I do believe IETF plays a crucial role in 
increasing the efficiency (energy wise) of the internet.

For instance, by moving towards HTTP/3, if we reduce the RTT to 
establish a connection, that's less CPU time spent on establishing the 
connection, less electromagnetic radiation (fiber optics / wireless) 
required, since now x less packets need to be transmitted etc.

I do think using available funds for further advancing the goals of IETF 
directly would be a better use - you could argue that IETF is producing 
carbon offsets as a direct consequence of its work!

I am not sure if IETF's contribution would be measurable, but here is a 
study done on energy efficiency of programming languages which is an 
interesting read: https://haslab.github.io/SAFER/scp21.pdf

Regards,

Raghu

On 3/22/23 05:53, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> Isn’t it also conceivable that each IETF meeting, on average, leads to the adoption of technologies that *reduces* the world’s carbon consumption, making the overall global carbon footprint of an IETF meeting *negative*?  And that perhaps having an in-person IETF meeting increases this effect - so much so that the overall global carbon footprint of an in-person IETF meeting is even more negative than that of a fully-remote IETF meeting?
>
> Should this be the case, will participants in an in-person IETF meeting be compensated for their attendance :-) :-)
>
> 	Ross.
>