Telecom Ministry has accepted most of the recommendations given by Trai on promoting energy efficient technologies and reducing carbon emissions in the fast growing telecom sector, official sources said. Efforts to bring down carbon emissions and encouraging environment-friendly technologies are generally referred to as approach towards green telecommunications.

"Department of Telecom (DoT) has approved majority of the Trai's recommendations on green telecom except some including sharing of the infrastructure using passive as well active methodologies and at least 50 per cent of all rural towers and 33 per cent of the urban towers to be powered by Renewable Energy Technologies (RET) by 2015," a source with the direct knowledge said.

In April, Trai had issued recommendation on 'Approach towards Green Telecommunications' in an effort to contain and reduce the carbon footprint from the rapid growth of telecommunications in the country.

Trai in its report on approach towards green telecommunications had demanded that measures to green the telecommunication sector should be an integral part of the proposed National Telecom Policy and in the next five years, at least 50 per cent of all rural towers and 33 per cent of the urban towers are to be powered by hybrid power (Renewable Energy Technologies by 2015.

Further, all telecom products, equipments and services in the telecom network should be Energy and performance assessed. They should be certified "Green Passport [GP]" utilising the ECR's Rating and the Energy 'passport' determined by the year 2015, and all mobile phones should be free of e-waste by the same year, Trai said.

All service providers should declare to Trai, the carbon footprint of their network operations in the prescribed format and based on the details of footprints declared by all service providers, service providers should aim at carbon emission reduction targets for the mobile network at 8 per cent by the year 2012-2013, 12 per cent by the year 2014-2015.

According to Trai study, it is estimated that the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector worldwide is responsible for around 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions.

By 2020, ICT is expected to account for about 3 per cent of global emissions worldwide. Of the current CO2 emissions, the contribution from the global telecommunication systems ? mobile, fixed and communication devices- is estimated to be around 230 million tones of CO2, or approximately 0.7 per cent of global emissions.

The total emission of the Indian telecom industry is estimated to be around one per cent per cent of the country's total CO2 emissions, according to Trai.