Climate Change Talk - Xavier Capet & Soeren Thomsen: "Towards a low-carbon academic research culture"

Abstract:

Climate change poses tremendous challenges to human societies. After briefly reviewing the climate situation, the talk will focus on collective reflexions and actions in progress in the (academic) research environment, that aim to modify research practices and contribute to the climate emergency response. 2 forms of initiatives will be presented:

1- a lab initiative: the carbon footprint of the LOCEAN laboratory will be presented (methodology and results), as well as the measures that are being discussed within LOCEAN to reduce CO2 emissions.

2- an international bottom-up virtual communication experiment: Scientists are high emitters and CO2 emissions due to aviation make up a dominant part of the carbon footprint of academic institutions. Behaviour change and innovative virtual communication tools could play a key role in making academic networking more inclusive and sustainable. Based on the trial virtual communication project “EBUS Webinars”, lessons-learned, barriers, challenges and requirements to make virtual communication successful at scale, will be discussed.