Astronomy's climate emissions: Global travel to scientific meetings in 2019

Andrea Gokus; Knud Jahnke; Paul M Woods; Vanessa A Moss; Volker Ossenkopf-Okada; Elena Sacchi; Adam R H Stevens; Leonard Burtscher; Cenk Kayhan; Hannah Dalgleish; Victoria Grinberg; Travis A Rector; Jan Rybizki; Jacob White

doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae143

Astronomy's climate emissions: Global travel to scientific meetings in 2019

PNAS Nexus. 2024 Apr 30;3(5):pgae143. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae143. eCollection 2024 May.

Authors

Andrea Gokus^{1

2

3}, Knud Jahnke⁴, Paul M Woods⁵, Vanessa A Moss^{6

7}, Volker Ossenkopf-Okada⁸, Elena Sacchi⁹, Adam R H Stevens¹⁰, Leonard Burtscher¹¹, Cenk Kayhan¹², Hannah Dalgleish^{13

14}, Victoria Grinberg¹⁵, Travis A Rector¹⁶, Jan Rybizki¹⁷, Jacob White¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
² Dr. Karl Remeis Sternwarte and ECAP, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Bamberg 96049, Germany.
³ Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg 97074, Germany.
⁴ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg 69117, Germany.
⁵ Independent Researcher, London, UK.
⁶ ATNF, CSIRO Space and Astronomy, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia.
⁷ Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics A28, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
⁸ Universität zu Köln, I. Physikalisches Institut, Köln 50937, Germany.
⁹ Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), Potsdam 14482, Germany.
¹⁰ International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
¹¹ Leiden Observatory, Leiden 2300 RA, The Netherlands.
¹² Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Faculty of Science, Erciyes University, Melikgazi, 38030, Türkiye.
¹³ Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
¹⁴ Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK.
¹⁵ European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, 2201 AZ, The Netherlands.
¹⁶ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK 99508, USA.
¹⁷ Weimar Institute of Applied Construction Research, Weimar 99428, Germany.
¹⁸ Independent Researcher, Vancouver, Canada.

Abstract

Travel to academic conferences-where international flights are the norm-is responsible for a sizeable fraction of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with academic work. In order to provide a benchmark for comparison with other fields, as well as for future reduction strategies and assessments, we estimate the CO₂-equivalent emissions for conference travel in the field of astronomy for the prepandemic year 2019. The GHG emission of the international astronomical community's 362 conferences and schools in 2019 amounted to 42,500 tCO₂e, assuming a radiative-forcing index factor of 1.95 for air travel. This equates to an average of 1.0 ± 0.6 tCO₂e per participant per meeting. The total travel distance adds up to roughly 1.5 Astronomical Units, that is, 1.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. We present scenarios for the reduction of this value, for instance with virtual conferencing or hub models, while still prioritizing the benefits conferences bring to the scientific community.

Keywords: astronomy and astrophysics; climate-change impacts; climate-change mitigation; conferences and meetings.