In a PNAS Nexus paper, published 2024, a team of A4E members led by Andrea Gokus, had estimated the CO2-equivalent emissions from conference travel to all 362 public meetings in astronomy in 2019, making it the first systematic study to assess these emissions for an entire research field. Now we want to follow up on this. Did the pandemic change conferencing in the long run? Do conference organizers follow the recommendations from this first paper for more inclusive and sustainable conferences? What fraction of meetings can be attended virtually?

A working group around Andrea tries to answer these questions by looking at the conferences of 2024 to see how much has changed in five years. How many meetings offered a hybrid component or were purely virtual? Have meeting organizers published their carbon footprint information? In the study the group wants to focus on best-practice examples such as the fully hybrid IAU general assembly in South Africa last year, analysing the feedback survey. In addition, and based on previous work by our colleagues from TFOM, the paper will include a discussion of the pros and cons of the different conference types (i.e.g,virtual, hybrid, hubs, and in-person). Collecting the required public information in order to analyse the carbon footprint of each conference as well as analysing feedback surveys is quite work intensive.. We welcome anyone in A4E who would like to join the project and contribute to the new study!

If you want to contribute, please, contact Andrea Gokus or join our Slack channel #project_flyingreductionpaper