Related papers: The carbon footprint of IRAP
The carbon footprint of astronomical research is an increasingly topical issue with first estimates of research institute and national community footprints having recently been published. As these assessments have typically excluded the…
We estimate the carbon footprint of astronomical research infrastructures, including space telescopes and probes and ground-based observatories. Our analysis suggests annual greenhouse gas emissions of $1.2\pm0.2$ MtCO$_2$e yr$^{-1}$ due to…
Research infrastructures have been identified as an important source of greenhouse gas emissions of astronomical research. Based on a comprehensive inventory of 1,211 ground-based observatories and space missions, we assessed the evolution…
The carbon footprint of astronomical research is an increasingly topical issue. From a comparison of existing literature, we infer an annual per capita carbon footprint of several tens of tonnes of CO$_2$ equivalents for an average person…
Research institutions are bound to contribute to greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction efforts for several reasons. First, part of the scientific community's research deals with climate change issues. Second, scientists contribute to…
Travel to academic conferences -- where international flights are the norm -- is responsible for a sizeable fraction of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with academic work. In order to provide a benchmark for comparison with…
Analysing greenhouse gas emissions of an astronomical institute is a first step in reducing its environmental impact. Here, we break down the emissions of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg and propose measures for…
As the climate crisis intensifies, understanding the environmental impact of professional activities is paramount, especially in sectors with historically significant resource utilisation. This includes High Energy Physics (HEP) and related…
The threat posed to humanity by global warming has led scientists to question the nature of their activities and the need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from research. Until now, most studies have aimed at quantifying the carbon…
For astronomers to make a significant contribution to the reduction of climate change-inducing greenhouse gas emissions, we first must quantify our sources of emissions and review the most effective approaches for reducing them. Here we…
Human activities degrade the Earth environment at an unprecedented scale and pace, threatening Earth-system stability, resilience and life-support functions. We can of course deny the facts, get angry about them, or try to bargain. Or we…
Large-scale experiments are building blocks of the physics community: they involve a large fraction of the scientific staff working in multiple countries, and absorb a significant volume of the science budget. They are also a collection of…
IRAC excels at detecting distant objects. Due to a combination of the shapes of the spectral energy distributions of galaxies and the low background achieved from space, IRAC reaches greater depth in comparable exposure time at 3.6 and 4.5…
In 2025, the French Society for Astronomy \& Astrophysics (SF2A), gave the environmental transition commission the opportunity to share their considerations during a plenary session at the annual SF2A conference. This year, the presentation…
Scientific research can bring about important progress in developing renewable energy technology such as solar cells. However, in addition to positive impact, research also comes at a cost, and one such cost is the CO$_2$ footprint…
In this report, we examine the available evidence regarding ICT's current and projected climate impacts. We examine peer-reviewed studies which estimate ICT's current share of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be 1.8-2.8% of global…
Scientific workflows facilitate the automation of data analysis, and are used to process increasing amounts of data. Therefore, they tend to be resource-intensive and long-running, leading to significant energy consumption and carbon…
As Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use has become more prevalent, there has been a growing concern in how its associated greenhouse gas emissions will impact the climate. Estimating such ICT emissions is a difficult…
Global warming imposes us to reflect on the way we carry research, embarking on the obligation to minimize the environmental impact of our research programs, with the reduction of our travel footprint being one of the easiest actions to…
France issued a decree to restrict and prohibit mainly outdoor lighting effective from January 1st, 2019. Effectiveness of this legislation has been evaluated in this study using GIS data which was first used in \cite{2020MNRAS.493.1204A}…