Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark captured the forlorn mood hanging over Ukraine and the entire planet in perhaps the most poignant line spoken at MWC Barcelona 2022.

“It’s almost absurd to be talking to you today about anything else while there is a war ongoing in Europe,” he said.

Lundmark conveyed shock over the invasion of Ukraine, the violation of international laws, and the use of violence. “Cooperation is the best way to improve living standards across the world. Conflict is not. It leads to misery,” he said.

Unfortunately, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t the only existential problem facing the world.

Climate change and its worsening consequences remains the most important topic at Nokia and it’s a problem that can be addressed with leadership, will, and technology, according to Lundmark.

“We are not doing anywhere near enough to deal with the situation. Instead of war games our leaders should be sitting down together and thinking about what they really should do about this,” he said.

All the currently available evidence suggests the planet will warm by three or four degrees by the end of this century, and that may be an optimistic scenario, Lundmark said. 

“We all know the reason for this. It’s very simple. We pump too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, about 50 billion tons each year, and energy production accounts for about three-quarters of that,” he said.

Despite pledges and major investments in renewable energy, it’s making a tiny difference. About 80% of the globe’s primary energy still comes from gas, oil, and coal.

“There is only one real solution and that is technology” that can lower costs and dramatically increase energy production from renewable sources. This is where solar, “the real champion” of renewable energy production comes into play, Lundmark said. 

“The sun is actually radiating the same amount of energy onto the Earth every hour that the whole globe uses in a year. So that is the source, that is the source. We just need to keep developing the technology and investing,” he said. 

The fundamental challenge with all of that will be connectivity because energy grids require consistently reliable communications to keep consumption and generation in balance every second, according to Lundmark.

As solar contributes more to the globe’s energy needs, systems will have to constantly adjust demand up or down and use different intermediate storage systems in between, he explained. 

Transitioning from a one-directional pipe that feeds energy from power plants to users to a highly complex distributed network that treats every device like an active intelligent node in the system requires a tight interconnection between electricity and telco networks, according to Lundmark. 

“What we need is a fully digitalized and artificial intelligence (AI) managed energy systems that can identify who needs energy, when they need it, and then deliver it at the lowest possible cost at the right time,” he said. 

“Connectivity is absolutely critical for a more sustainable world,” and the telco industry is consistently rolling out products and services that unlock sustainability, Lundmark said. For example, home broadband uses 38% less power than in 2007 while speeds have increased by a factor of 64 during that time. 

And then, enters 5G with its improved spectral efficiency that requires less energy per bit. “The connection capacity of 5G, and then 5G Advanced, and ultimately 6G will allow us to create a constantly improving feedback loop between the virtual and physical worlds. We’ll be able to produce digital twins of cities, nations, even of planet Earth,” he said. 

This will allow for carbon release tracking in real time, mapping the evolution of energy transportation and infrastructure over vast areas, and a modeling of the impacts of overlapping policy developments to determine when and how drastic changes will occur. “This deep compute, real-world metaverse is not the cherry on top of sustainability — it is sustainability itself, and it’s all based on connectivity,” Lundmark said.

He closed with three big requests: more affordable spectrum, policies to mobilize market investments, and a collective pledge to do the right thing. “We need to make tech and tech companies a force for good,” he said.

“Digitalization can enable cuts in emissions up to 10-times larger than those [emissions] of the telecommunications industry itself,” Lundmark concluded. “I'm proud that our industry has that responsibility.”