In these times of increased concern about global warming, the average person is now being forced to question everything they do in their daily lives to see whether it really is necessary and to think of alternatives that result in lower emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases if it is.

In the home, this includes things like exchanging bulbs for low power alternatives, turning the thermostat on the central heating down a degree or two and even remembering the jumpers in the drawer upstairs if it gets chilly.

Yet the silent enemy in our homes to our best laid plans to tackle global warming goes mostly unnoticed - standby. But in the dead of night, that little red light on the television looks accusingly at you, intimidating you with its even stare, daring you to turn the television on with your remote so its malevolent gaze can be replaced by a friendly green glow. Yet my own view is that standby has become a scapegoat. I view using a remote control to turn my TV on and off as a right of modern life.

Future generations - my own children even – may view me as some kind of wanton carbon criminal in years to come but I cannot shake the feeling that using devices with standby modes has become unfairly branded as irresponsible. After all, we don’t think twice about leaving the fridge on all day.

OK, so that last statement was a bit flippant. While I firmly believe that using standby shouldn’t be banned, I am not saying we shouldn’t do anything about it to make it more environmentally friendly. You only have to look at the statistics to realise that.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), an energy policy advisory body, reckons that the average residence in Europe, Japan, Australia or North America has 20 devices drawing standby power. This includes anything that can be switched on and off by remote control, devices that incorporate LEDs, PCs and other everyday appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines. Even though standby power consumption is relatively low compared to normal power consumption, these 20 devices add up.

The IEA estimates that standby power is responsible for 5 – 10% of total electricity use in most home and could be responsible for up to 1% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing the power needs of standby rather than banning is what I advocate and there have been moves to do just that. In 1999, the IEA came up with its one-watt plan, in which the agency’s member countries would be encouraged to aim towards getting devices to use a maximum power of one watt when in standby mode.

Several governments have signed up to these strict limits. In 2001, America’s President Bush decreed that when governmental agencies bought new equipment it had to consume a maximum power of one watt when in standby mode. Although that doesn’t tackle the standby power mountain (or is it a lake?) of the general public, it sends a strong message to them and encourages good practice among equipment manufacturers.

Other countries, including Australia, have set one watt power consumption as a target to achieve by 2010. That’s less than three years away but is achievable, at least to some extent. Although some devices use up to 30 watts in standby mode, others have achieved standby using a fraction of a watt. We should also put these figures into perspective.

Overfilling your kettle or leaving lights unnecessarily switched on will use as much electricity as some devices left on standby. You also have to think about other users of electricity – commercial firms for example. Why should I turn my devices off if the company over the road leaves all its lights on for 24 hours a day, making their office like a beacon in the hours of darkness. And what about other areas of your life? Is leaving the TV on standby a worse crime than taking more regular holidays abroad as we seem to be doing these days?

As for me, if I really wanted to do something about global warming, I should probably look at another part of my job. As well as writing about electrical and electronic technology, I’m the ski correspondent of The Times newspaper in London and it’s my job to encourage people to visit ski resorts, despite the carbon dioxide emissions their trips to the mountains cause.

So yes, I’ll admit it. I’m a carbon criminal when it comes to standby. Maybe I’ll become a social pariah in the future, being forced to black out the baleful red eye on my TV and only using the remote surreptitiously when no-one is looking, rather like the smokers of today. But let’s at least take a look at how we can reduce the impact of standby first.