General support for climate action is widely expressed within academia and public research, with surveys consistently reporting exceptionally high levels of awareness and concern about the climate crisis. Yet, the implementation of mitigation policies in universities and research institutions remains limited. Drawing on a national survey of 4,688 academics and research personnel in France, we examine this apparent paradox and find that more than half express attitudinal barriers to climate action, including reluctance toward the inclusion of academia in mitigation efforts, opposition to institutional mitigation policies, and inconsistencies between stated support for mitigation and willingness to adopt corresponding changes in individual research practices. Higher perceived costs of academic mitigation actions—particularly their potential impacts on competitiveness and scientific visibility—are consistently associated with these barriers, along with lower agreement with degrowth as a response to environmental challenges. Such barriers are also more prevalent among senior male scientists with higher levels of mobility, particularly in physics, chemistry, and medical and health sciences. Academia provides a critical context to examine how climate inaction can persist in the near absence of climate denial. Our findings suggest that moving from stated commitments to effective action requires addressing how climate policies interact with academic hierarchies and dominant models of productivity and recognition—an issue with direct implications for the design of mitigation policies within research institutions.

Global passenger air traffic has rapidly rebounded after the lifting of COVID-19 travel restrictions, often exceeding pre-pandemic levels. However, evidence on whether business travel has undergone lasting, sector-specific reconfigurations remains scarce. Here we provide a large-scale post-pandemic sectoral analysis, focusing on academia, a highly airmobile sector but equipped with digital alternatives to physical travel. Using a comprehensive French national dataset covering more than 110 000 academic staff and nearly one million business trips between 2019 and 2024, we show that academic air travel has not rebounded but instead stabilized at around 50% of its pre-pandemic level. This decline holds across distances, research disciplines, and travel motives, and translates into a twofold reduction in travel-related greenhouse gas emissions, well beyond institutional climate targets. A decomposition indicates that this reduction is primarily driven by a contraction in flight frequency. Although rail travel declined relative to 2019, we document a marked air-to-rail modal shift at a continental scale and a relative increase in long-distance rail travel. Together, these patterns point to a durable reconfiguration of professional mobility norms rather than a demand contraction. The pronounced drop observed in this sector contrasts sharply with national and Western European air mobility trends, challenging narratives of an inevitable post-covid rebound. This reconfiguration of mobility patterns in academia also challenges influential notions such as the ‘knowledge-action gap’ and the ‘fly or die’ hypothesis, and provides new insights into the relationship between environmental awareness, professional constraints, and behavior. More broadly, the emergence of these new mobility norms, which occurred in the absence of binding regulations, highlights the role of social and organizational dynamics in driving low-carbon transitions and shaping mobility-related mitigation strategies.

The carbon footprint of academic research has attracted growing attention in recent years, with numerous assessments conducted at the level of universities or research departments. Yet, methodological inconsistencies and small sample sizes limit comparability and hinder generalization, while concrete mitigation targets remain underdeveloped. This study draws on a national database covering about 157,000 research staff in 700 units-roughly one-third of French public research-between 2019 and 2023. Emissions are assessed across five major sources: purchases, professional travel, commuting, electricity, and heating. The dataset is used to (i) model structural determinants of research-related GHG emissions and (ii) establish reference values to guide mitigation strategies. We develop a framework to identify robust statistical models to predict average emissions levels per source. Based on staff composition, supervisory body, research domain, and geographical location, these models explain up to one-third of inter-unit variance and improve predictive accuracy by 8%-23% over baseline averages. Embedded in an online tool, these models help support the design of efficient, equitable, and realistic mitigation targets.

OPINION article Front. Sustain., 09 February 2024Sec. Sustainable Organizations Volume 5 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2024.1338660

The carbon footprint of academia has become a prominent concern and a burgeoning research area, with a notable focus on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from research-related travels. Mitigation strategies often promote alternatives, such as developing virtual communication or adopting sustainable transportation modes for short distances. While more ambitious strategies involving the transformation of research practices are increasingly discussed, these mitigation solutions are rarely subjected to rigorous quantitative assessments or meaningful comparisons. This study analyzes a unique database of about 130 000 travel segments by car, train and plane in 159 research entities across a wide array of disciplines in France. We investigate the patterns and associated carbon footprint of these research travels and explore a diversity of mitigation options. Our analysis shows that air travel overwhelmingly outweighs the carbon footprint of research travel, representing more than 96% of GHG emissions. Intercontinental flights are infrequent (less than 10% of all plane trips) but dominate GHG travel emissions, accounting for over 64% of total emissions. In contrast, domestic and continental flights are the most common but their mitigation potential by modal shift to train is limited (e.g. less than 15% for trips under 1000 km). Similar reductions can be achieved by targeting a small subset of travels, for example by modulating the frequency of conference attendance. The greatest and possibly most robust mitigation potential lies in combining modal shift with moderating air mileage (e.g. reducing travelled distance or number of flights). Strategies focusing on electrification or modal shifts for cars, proposed in official guidelines, are found to have negligible impact. In the absence of low-carbon alternatives for long-haul flights, we contend that only comprehensive strategies and policies which include moderating air travel distance or frequency can achieve a robust significant reduction in the GHG emissions from academic travel.

The carbon footprint of academia has become a prominent concern and a burgeoning research area, with a notable focus on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from research-related travels. Mitigation strategies often promote alternatives, such as developing virtual communication or adopting sustainable transportation modes for short distances. While more ambitious strategies involving the transformation of research practices are increasingly discussed, these mitigation solutions are rarely subjected to rigorous quantitative assessments or meaningful comparisons. This study analyzes a unique database of about 130 000 travel segments by car, train and plane in 159 research entities across a wide array of disciplines in France. We investigate the patterns and associated carbon footprint of these research travels and explore a diversity of mitigation options. Our analysis shows that air travel overwhelmingly outweighs the carbon footprint of research travel, representing more than 96% of GHG emissions. Intercontinental flights are infrequent (less than 10% of all plane trips) but dominate GHG travel emissions, accounting for over 64% of total emissions. In contrast, domestic and continental flights are the most common but their mitigation potential by modal shift to train is limited (e.g. less than 15% for trips under 1000 km). Similar reductions can be achieved by targeting a small subset of travels, for example by modulating the frequency of conference attendance. The greatest and possibly most robust mitigation potential lies in combining modal shift with moderating air mileage (e.g. reducing travelled distance or number of flights). Strategies focusing on electrification or modal shifts for cars, proposed in official guidelines, are found to have negligible impact. In the absence of low-carbon alternatives for long-haul flights, we contend that only comprehensive strategies and policies which include moderating air travel distance or frequency can achieve a robust significant reduction in the GHG emissions from academic travel.

Labos 1point5 is a nationwide action-research project that so far about half of research units in France have used to assess their carbon footprint. Tamara Ben-Ari describes some of the scientific findings from the resulting dataset and what they show about how to change the scientific system.

<p>In the midst of climate change, academic travels - one salient aspect of the carbon footprint of research activities - are at the center of a growing concern. Mitigation options often focus on two dimensions : (i) decreasing the frequency of attendance to conferences and (ii) modal shift in transport. Here, we analyze professional travel in academia from a unique database compiling about 100 000 travels from about 150 research labs across a large array of disciplines and localities in France to detail the structure, patterns and heterogeneity of national and international research travels for research purposes. We estimate the mitigation potential of a series of options encompassing but not limited to institutional options. We show that, if short distance traveling (typically below 1000 km) are largely dominant in number, their relative mitigation potential via modal shift is small (i.e., below 15%). On the other hand, long distance traveling, which is often associated with international collaborations or field work hold a much larger mitigation potential but question the very nature of research activities. We propose ambitious sobriety options to robustly decrease travel-induced GHG emissions in academia and discuss their acceptability in the context of the French public research system.</p>

The scrutiny over the carbon footprint of research and higher education has increased rapidly in the last few years. This has resulted in a series of publications providing various estimates of the carbon footprint of one or several research activities, principally at the scale of a university or a research center or, more recently, a field of research. The variety of tools or methodologies on which these estimates rely unfortunately prevents any aggregation or direct comparison. This is because carbon footprint assessments are very sensitive to key parameters (e.g., emission factors) or hypotheses (e.g., scopes). Hence, it is impossible to address fundamental questions such as: is the carbon footprint of research structurally different between disciplines? Are plane trips a major source of carbon emissions in academic research? Massive collection and curation of carbon footprint data, across a large array of research situations and disciplines, is hence an important, timely and necessary challenge to answer these questions. This paper presents a framework to collect and analyse large amounts of homogeneous research carbon emission data in a network of research entities at the national scale. It relies on an open-source web application, GES 1point5, designed to estimate the carbon footprint of a department, research lab or team in any country of the world. Importantly, GES 1point5 is also designed to aggregate all input data and corresponding GHG emissions estimates into a comprehensive database. GES 1point5 therefore enables (i) the identification of robust local or national determinants of the carbon footprint of research and (ii) the estimation of the carbon footprint of the entire research sector at national scale. A preliminary analysis of the carbon footprint of more than one hundred laboratories in France is presented to illustrate the potential of the framework. It shows that the average emissions are 479 t CO2e for a research lab and 3.6 t CO2e for an average lab member (respectively 404 and 3.1 t CO2e without accounting for the indirect radiative effects of aviation), with the current scope of GES 1point5. Availability and implementation: GES 1point5 is available online at http://labos1point5.org/ges- 1point5 and its source code can be downloaded from the GitLab platform at https://framagit.org/ labos1point5/l1p5-vuejs.

In the face of global warming, academics have started to consider and analyze the environmental and carbon footprint associated with their professional activity. Among the several sources of greenhouse gas emissions from research activities, air travel—one of the most visible and unequal fractions of this footprint—has received much attention. Of particular interest is the question of how air travel may be related to scientific success or visibility as defined by current academic evaluation norms, notably bibliometric indicators. Existing studies, conducted over a small sample of individuals or within specific disciplines, have demonstrated that the number of citations may be related to air-travel frequency, but have failed to identify a link between air travel and publication rate or h -index. Here, using a comprehensive dataset aggregating the answers from over 6000 respondents to a survey sent to randomly selected scientists and staff across all research disciplines in France, we show that higher individual air travel is associated with a stronger publication rate and h -index. This relationship is robust to the inclusion of the effects of gender, career stage, and disciplines. Our analysis suggests that flying is a means for early-career scientists to obtain scientific visibility, and for senior scientists to maintain this visibility.

Currently, large-scale transmissions of infectious diseases are becoming more closely associated with accelerated globalization and climate change, but quantitative analyses are still rare. By using an extensive dataset consisting of date and location of cases for the third plague pandemic from 1772 to 1964 in China and a novel method (nearest neighbour approach) which deals with both short- and long-distance transmissions, we found the presence of major roads, rivers and coastline accelerated the spread of plague and shaped the transmission patterns. We found that plague spread velocity was positively associated with wet conditions (measured by an index of drought and flood events) in China, probably due to flood-driven transmission by people or rodents. Our study provides new insights on transmission patterns and possible mechanisms behind variability in transmission speed, with implications for prevention and control measures. The methodology may also be applicable to studies of disease dynamics or species movement in other systems.

Supplementary data tml http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/suppl/2014/02/10/rspb.2013.3159.DC1.h "Data Supplement" References http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1780/20133159.full.html#ref-list-1 This article cites 36 articles, 11 of which can be accessed free Subject collections (1679 articles) ecology • Articles on similar topics can be found in the following collections Email alerting service here right-hand corner of the article or click Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article sign up in the box at the top

By the end of the XXIst century, a global temperature rise between 1.5 and 4°C compared to 1980- 1999 and CO2 concentrations in the range 550-900 ppm are expected, together with an increased frequency of extreme climatic events (heat waves, droughts, and heavy rain) that is likely to negatively affect grassland production and livestock systems in a number of world regions. Grassland management has a large potential to mitigate livestock greenhouse gas emissions at a low (or even negative) cost, by combining a moderate intensification, the restoration of degraded pastures and the development of silvo-pastoral systems. Climate change vulnerability will be highest in regional hot spots with high exposure to climatic extremes and low adaptive capacity, such as extensive systems in dryland areas. Biome shifts, with expansion or contraction of the grassland biome, are projected by models. Resistance, resilience and transformation strategies can be used for grassland adaptation. With sown grasslands, adaptation options include changes in forage species (e.g. use of C4 grasses and of annual species) and genotypes and the use of grass-legume mixtures. Grazing management can be adapted to increase the resilience of plant communities to climatic variability. Our understanding of the synergies and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation in the grassland sector is still limited and requires further research. Provided this understanding is gained, climate smart grassland systems that sustainably increase productivity and resilience (adaptation), reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), and enhance food security and development could be promoted. By reducing productivity gaps and increasing livestock production efficiency, they would also contribute to mitigate climate change from tropical deforestation and expansion of grasslands into savannahs. (Resume d'auteur)

Carrying out statistical analysis over an extensive dataset of human plague reports in Chinese villages from 1772 to 1964, we identified plague endemic territories in China (i.e., plague foci). Analyses rely on (i) a clustering method that groups time series based on their time-frequency resemblances and (ii) an ecological niche model that helps identify plague suitable territories characterized by value ranges for a set of predefined environmental variables. Results from both statistical tools indicate the existence of two disconnected plague territories corresponding to Northern and Southern China. Altogether, at least four well defined independent foci are identified. Their contours compare favorably with field observations. Potential and limitations of inferring plague foci and dynamics using epidemiological data is discussed.

Plague is enzootic in wildlife populations of small mammals in central and eastern Asia, Africa, South and North America, and has been recognized recently as a reemerging threat to humans.Its causative agent Yersinia pestis relies on wild rodent hosts and flea vectors for its maintenance in nature.Climate influences all three components (i.e., bacteria, vectors, and hosts) of the plague system and is a likely factor to explain some of plague's variability from small and regional to large scales.Here, we review effects of climate variables on plague hosts and vectors from individual or population scales to studies on the whole plague system at a large scale.Upscaled versions of small-scale processes are often invoked to explain plague variability in time and space at larger scales, presumably because similar scale-independent mechanisms underlie these relationships.This linearity assumption is discussed in the light of recent research that suggests some of its limitations.

Plague is enzootic in wildlife populations of small mammals in central and eastern Asia, Africa, South and North America, and has been recognized recently as a reemerging threat to humans. Its causative agent Yersinia pestis relies on wild rodent hosts and flea vectors for its maintenance in nature. Climate influences all three components (i.e., bacteria, vectors, and hosts) of the plague system and is a likely factor to explain some of plague's variability from small and regional to large scales. Here, we review effects of climate variables on plague hosts and vectors from individual or population scales to studies on the whole plague system at a large scale. Upscaled versions of small-scale processes are often invoked to explain plague variability in time and space at larger scales, presumably because similar scale-independent mechanisms underlie these relationships. This linearity assumption is discussed in the light of recent research that suggests some of its limitations.

Over the years, plague has caused a large number of deaths worldwide and subsequently changed history, not the least during the period of the Black Death. Of the three plague pandemics, the third is believed to have originated in China. Using the spatial and temporal human plague records in China from 1850 to 1964, we investigated the association of human plague intensity (plague cases per year) with proxy data on climate condition (specifically an index for dryness/wetness). Our modeling analysis demonstrates that the responses of plague intensity to dry/wet conditions were different in northern and southern China. In northern China, plague intensity generally increased when wetness increased, for both the current and the previous year, except for low intensity during extremely wet conditions in the current year (reflecting a dome-shaped response to current-year dryness/wetness). In southern China, plague intensity generally decreased when wetness increased, except for high intensity during extremely wet conditions of the current year. These opposite effects are likely related to the different climates and rodent communities in the two parts of China: In northern China (arid climate), rodents are expected to respond positively to high precipitation, whereas in southern China (humid climate), high precipitation is likely to have a negative effect. Our results suggest that associations between human plague intensity and precipitation are nonlinear: positive in dry conditions, but negative in wet conditions.