Lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for the current climate crisis

As of summer 2021, one can hope that Denmark is halfway through the COVID-19 crisis. The phrase “post-COVID” is being uttered more and more. At the onset of the crisis, politicians, likely due to fears of an economic meltdown, shied away from declaring a lockdown early on and impose mandatory mask measures. News of emergency rooms bursting at the seams in Italy had to reach Denmark before harsher measures were taken. The response to the COVID crisis was relatively well accepted by the Danish public regardless of political leanings. However, in other countries including the US and Brazil, the response was heavily politicized. An appropriate response to the pandemic was considered a sign of weakness and stricter COVID measures were championed by the more left-leaning side of the political spectrum.

However, if we extrapolate the lessons learned during the COVID-19 crisis to the climate crisis, this does not portend well:

• For governments to respond adequality, a crisis needs to reach the level of catastrophe, what will be the tipping point for the government to implement policies to drastically curtail greenhouse emissions? Marine species are being baked alive in the Pacific Northwest due to a heatwave that is 150 times more likely to have happened than in at the end of the 19th century, 1.1M people in Southern Madagascar are unable to feed themselves due to a climate-related drought. But none have prompted bold climate action. The onus is on the public and the scientific community to force such changes before reaching such catastrophic scenarios.
• Furthermore, when the response to such a crisis becomes politicized and split along a left-right political axis, disaster ensues as only half the population vociferously pushes for such changes.

It is incumbent upon scientists to take a political stand and avoid waiting for a societal catastrophe to address the crisis or politicizing the response to the climate crisis.

In 2020/2021, conferences became virtual

For scientists, conferences are a way to publicize their results, keep abreast of the current research, establish new collaborations and get reacquainted with old friends. These international conferences usually bring large numbers of scientists from abroad, probably most of whom fly there.

While such conferences are important for the vital of scientists, we cannot ignore the significant CO2 footprint of such conferences. We cannot simultaneously claim to do science while blithely ignoring the work of our colleagues in climate science. Due to COVID-19, several conferences adopted a virtual format. While I will admit that these formats are not as congenial as seeing people in person, they offer a more sustainable alternative which should become the norm rather than the exception post-COVID.

The environmental cost of scientific conferences

Such conferences have attendees that sometimes number in the thousands. Multiply in your mind the number of transcontinental attendees times the number of scientific conferences times 2 tons of CO2 to obtain an idea of the scale of emissions incurred as a result of flying for conferences. We are also often given a polyester conference bag along with plastic pens and a plastic name tag. None of which are biodegradable.

(left: “What is this?” right: “It’s 200 countries who are sending private jets to the climate change conference so that I stop driving my pickup truck”, taken from “Les images s’expriment”

While online tools like Zoom do have their share of CO2 emissions, they are negligible compared to a transcontinental flight. Science has not collapsed as a result of having virtual conferences and keeping the majority of international conferences virtual is a small compromise given the scale of the climate emergency.

How can we achieve this moving forward? We could continue to pick a host city that would dictate the schedule and steering committee. Tools like Gather.town can help with the networking aspect of the conference, see here for several ideas. Another possible model is the hub-and-spoke where different continents gather in different cities and we connect them virtually. Regardless of the model, virtual conferences should be here to stay.

International conferences discriminate against low-income countries

I have lived in Brazil for 2 years. This experience made me acutely aware of the difficulties talented South American scientists routinely face while dealing with colleagues and institutions in the US/Europe or Asia. While paying 350 euros in conference fees is doable for a Japanese researcher, the same cannot be said for someone based in Peru. Likewise, flying from New York to Milan can be easily covered by a US grant, flying from Nairobi can become prohibitively expensive for a Kenyan researcher. Furthermore, getting the necessary visas often involves months of wait, extra fees, providing extensive paperwork and lengthy visa interviews that can be downright humiliating. While getting entry to the UK is easy on a Canadian passport, it can be tricky for someone with an Algerian passport. Even if the visa is granted, one can face discrimination by overzealous border agents. This happened when I was living in Brazil.

Keeping conferences virtual would help alleviate some of the inequalities some researchers face in low-income countries and allow them greater access to scientific conferences normally hosted in North America/Europe/Asia.

Virtual conferences are better but not a panacea

While keeping international conferences virtual would certainly reduce carbon emissions while providing greater access to scientists in low-income countries, such a change is by no means a panacea. First, conference fees are still a problem, as previously mentioned, 350 euros does not have the same significance around the world. Also, sufficiently high internet speeds are required for software like Zoom. High internet speeds are not always available in certain regions. However, technologies like 5G will probably make this less of a problem. The other hurdle I can think of is differences in timezones.

Regardless of these potential problems, keeping conferences virtual is a necessary step until we have decarbonized air travel which will probably not be tomorrow. Several efforts are already underway to keep conferences virtual see here, here and here.

A big thank you to Sarvenaz Sarabipour for the links!