Comprehensive carbon footprint of Earth and environmental science
laboratories: implications for sustainable scientific practice
Abstract
To limit global warming below 2°C, a drastic overall reduction from
current CO2 emissions is needed. We argue that scientists should also
participate in this effort in their professional activity and especially
Earth scientists, on the grounds of maintaining credibility and leading
by example. The strategies and measures to reach a low-carbon scientific
activity require detailed estimates of the current footprint of
laboratories. Here, we present the footprint of six laboratories in
Earth, environmental and space sciences, representative of the AGU
community, with a comprehensive scope also including international
research infrastructures. We propose a novel method to attribute the
footprint of any research infrastructure to any given research
laboratory. Our results highlight that most laboratories have annual
footprints reaching 10-20 tonnes CO2 equivalent per person (tCO2e.p-1),
dominated by infrastructures and specifically satellites in three cases
(with footprints up to 11 tCO2e.p-1 or 60%), while air-travels and
purchases remain within the top three sources in all cases (2-4 tCO2e
p-1 or 10-30% each). Consequently, footprints related to commuting and
laboratory functioning, about 2 tCO2e.p-1 (20%) or less, are relatively
modest compared to infrastructures, purchases and air-travels. Thus,
reduction measures ignoring infrastructures may not be able to achieve
reductions larger than 20 to 35% even with flight quotas and a
substantial reduction of purchases. Finally, we also discuss how a
deeper transformation of scientific practices, away from a fast science
ideal, could make Earth and environmental sciences more sustainable and
at the forefront of a rapid and drastic social bifurcation.