UK officials are expected to use next year's COP26 climate summit to ask people to stop sending unnecessary emails, according to the BBC. The push, first reported by The Financial Times, is based on the energy consumed by transmitting and storing messages. One official told the FT that cutting superfluous emails "would save a lot of carbon."
The scale of that saving is the central question. If everyone in the UK sent one fewer email per day, the BBC reports, it would prevent about 18,114 tons of carbon emissions annually. That figure sounds substantial on its own, but it represents just 0.0037 percent of the UK's annual greenhouse gas emissions.
An expert quoted by the BBC said the real-world benefit is likely even smaller. A University of Bristol sustainability and computer systems specialist said the system still carries impact whether or not a given email is sent. "There will be a small saving in the data centre hosting the email, particularly if it allows them to use a few less servers," the expert said. "But the carbon saved will be far far less than 1g per email."
The source material does not specify how the 18,114-ton figure was calculated, nor does it identify the official who spoke to the FT beyond the outlet's attribution. The BBC report also does not detail what form the COP26 request would take or whether it would be voluntary.
The broader context in the source is that personal actions like sending fewer emails offer limited benefit compared with the emissions attributed to the military-industrial complex and a small number of corporations. The source suggests that more ambitious, societal-scale changes may be necessary to meaningfully curb climate change, though it does not specify what those changes would be.
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