Heads in the clouds: On the carbon footprint of conference-seeded publications in the advancement of knowledge.

Laurent Seuront,Katy R. Nicastro,Gerardo I. Zardi

doi:10.1002/ece3.8201

Abstract

The carbon footprint of flying overseas to conferences, meetings, and workshops to share and build knowledge has been increasingly questioned over the last two decades, especially in environmental and climate sciences, due to the related colossal carbon emissions. Here, we infer the value of scientific meetings through the number of publications produced either directly or indirectly after attending a scientific conference, symposium, or workshop (i.e., the conference‐related production) and the number of publications produced per meeting (i.e., the conference‐related productivity) as proxies for the academic value of these meetings, and relate them to both the number of meetings attended and the related carbon emissions. We show that conference‐related production and productivity, respectively, increase and decay with the number of meetings attended, and noticeably that the less productive people exhibit the largest carbon footprint. Taken together, our results imply that a twofold decrease in the carbon footprint FCO2 of a given scientist would result in a twofold increase in productivity through a fivefold decrease in the number of meeting attended. In light of these figures, we call for both the implementation of objective and quantitative criteria related to the optimum number of conferences to attend in an effort to maximize scientific productivity while minimizing the related carbon footprint, and the development of a rationale to minimize the carbon emission related to scientific activities.

Highlights

The United Nations Climate Change conferences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports unequivocally indicate that despite the considerable amount of effort related to decrease our carbon footprints through the development of alternative energy solutions and more incentive toward carbon neutral events such as the One Planet Summit, we are still living in an era of increasing anthropogenic pressure on our environment
Climate scientists even argued that their large carbon footprints decrease their credibility to the public and the impact of their advice (Attari et al, 2016); both the number of and attendance to international forums such as IPCC and Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings are quintessential examples of this paradox
We considered the number of peer-reviewed publications produced either directly or indirectly after attending a scientific meeting, and the subsequent conference-related productivity as proxies for the academic value of these meetings, and we further assessed their carbon footprint

Summary

Introduction

The United Nations Climate Change conferences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports unequivocally indicate that despite the considerable amount of effort related to decrease our carbon footprints through the development of alternative energy solutions and more incentive toward carbon neutral events such as the One Planet Summit, we are still living in an era of increasing anthropogenic pressure on our environment. KEYWORDS carbon footprint, climate change, COVID crisis, scientific meetings, scientific production and productivity, virtual conferences

Results

Conclusion