The annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society took place in Lyon, France, in 2019, but in 2020 it was held online only due the COVID-19 pandemic. The carbon footprint of the virtual meeting was roughly 3,000 times smaller than the face-to-face one, providing encouragement for more ecologically minded conferencing.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
The environmental sustainability of digital content consumption
Nature Communications Open Access 02 May 2024
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
27,99 € / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
118,99 € per year
only 9,92 € per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Lenton, T. M. et al. Nature 575, 592–595 (2019).
Steffen, W. et al. Science 347, 1259855 (2015).
Emissions Gap Report 2019 (United Nations Environment Programme, 2019); https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019
IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C (WMO, 2018); https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
Matzner, C. D. et al. Astronomy in a Low-Carbon Future (Zenodo, 2019); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3758549
Williamson, K., Rector, T. A. & Lowenthal, J. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.08043 (2019).
Portegies Zwart, S. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1208-y (2020).
Flagey, N., Thronas, K., Petric, A., Withington, K. & Seidel, M. J. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1190-4 (2020).
Barret, D. Exp. Astron. 49, 183–216 (2020).
Emissions de CO2 Marche (CCFA, 2018); https://ccfa.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/fiche-pays-ccfa_co2.pdf.
Jahnke, K. et al. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1202-4 (2020).
Muntean, M. et al. Fossil CO2 Emissions of All World Countries: 2018 Report (Publications Office of the European Union, 2018); https://go.nature.com/3gd9xyI
Zoom Bandwidth Requirements (Zoom, accessed 19 August 2020); https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023.
Aslan, J., Mayers, K., Koomey, J. G. & France, C. J. Ind. Ecol. 22, 785–798 (2018).
Overview of Electricity Production and Use in Europe (EEA, 2018); https://go.nature.com/2Q5vQvX
Klöwer, M., Hopkins, D., Allen, M. & Higham, J. Nature 583, 356–359 (2020).
Abbott, A. Nature 577, 13 (2020).
Reshef, O. et al. Nat. Rev. Mater. 5, 253–256 (2020).
Hiltner, K. A Nearly Carbon-neutral Conference Model (2020); https://hiltner.english.ucsb.edu/index.php/ncnc-guide/
Acknowledgements
L.B. would like to acknowledge discussions and feedback on a draft article from M. Baes, A. Burkert, R. L. Davies, L. Kaper, S. Lucatello, S. Portegies Zwart, H. Röttgering and A. Schouten-Voskamp.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
L.B. was a member of the local organizing committee of the EAS 2020 meeting. M.J.M. was a member of the scientific organizing committee of the EWASS 2019 meeting. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Burtscher, L., Barret, D., Borkar, A.P. et al. The carbon footprint of large astronomy meetings. Nat Astron 4, 823–825 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1207-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1207-z
This article is cited by
-
The main barriers to distributed interaction are not technological
Nature Astronomy (2025)
-
Scenarios of future annual carbon footprints of astronomical research infrastructures
Nature Astronomy (2024)
-
The environmental sustainability of digital content consumption
Nature Communications (2024)
-
Going beyond being there to bring astronomy to the world
Nature Astronomy (2023)
-
A more sustainable future for astronomy
Nature Astronomy (2023)
