To halt further climate change, computing, along with the rest of society, must reduce, and eventually eliminate, its carbon emissions. Recently, many researchers have focused on estimating and optimizing computing's \emph{embodied carbon}, i.e., from manufacturing computing infrastructure, in addition to its \emph{operational carbon}, i.e., from executing computations, primarily because the former is much larger than the latter but has received less research attention. Focusing attention on embodied carbon is important because it can incentivize i) operators to increase their infrastructure's efficiency and lifetime and ii) downstream suppliers to reduce their own operational carbon, which represents upstream companies' embodied carbon. Yet, as we discuss, focusing attention on embodied carbon may also introduce harmful incentives, e.g., by significantly overstating real carbon reductions and complicating the incentives for directly optimizing operational carbon. This position paper's purpose is to mitigate such harmful incentives by highlighting both the promise and potential pitfalls of optimizing embodied carbon.

翻译：为遏制气候变化进一步加剧，计算领域与社会各行业一样，必须减少并最终消除碳排放。近年来，众多研究者除关注计算过程的"运营碳排放"（即执行计算产生的排放）外，还着重对计算基础设施的"隐含碳排放"（即制造计算基础设施产生的排放）进行估算与优化，这主要源于前者排放量远超后者却鲜受学术关注。聚焦隐含碳排放具有重要意义，因其既能激励运营方提升基础设施效率与使用寿命，又能推动下游供应商降低自身运营碳排放（即上游企业的隐含碳排放）。然而正如本文所论，过度聚焦隐含碳排放也可能催生有害激励，例如过度夸大实际减排效果、干扰运营碳排放直接优化的激励机制等。本立场文件旨在通过阐明优化隐含碳排放的机遇与潜在陷阱，以消解此类有害激励。