# Astronomy organizations should lead in our battle against the climate crisis

Leo Burtscher, Lola Balaguer-Núñez, Valentina D'orazi, Didier Barret, Tobias Beuchert, Emre Dil, Agnieszka Janiuk, Beatriz Mingo, Eloisa Poggio

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## To cite this version:

Leo Burtscher, Lola Balaguer-Núñez, Valentina D'orazi, Didier Barret, Tobias Beuchert, et al.. Astronomy organizations should lead in our battle against the climate crisis. Nature Astronomy, 2022, 6 (7), pp.764-764. 10.1038/s41550-022-01722-y. hal-04940725

HAL Id: hal-04940725

https://hal.science/hal-04940725v1

Submitted on 3 Oct 2025

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# Astronomy organizations should lead in our battle against the climate crisis

To the Editor — The alarming sound in the latest IPCC 'code red' report was unmistakable: "Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C is beyond reach." Only a few weeks later, the World Meteorological Organization reported that there is now a 50% chance that we will temporarily reach 1.5 °C warming already in the next five years. And indeed, with the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters such as flooding, heat waves and droughts, it is becoming harder not to see a looming climate catastrophe unless massive and immediate action is taken. Astronomers worldwide are well aware of our peril and are demanding astronomy organizations to act — nearly 3,000 have signed Astronomers for Planet Earth's open letter demanding climate action from our institutions.

Reacting to pressure from the community, the European Astronomical Society (EAS) inaugurated a sustainability group in late-2020 (recently renamed Advisory Committee). Soon after, in January 2021, the committee members delivered a list of ten recommendations to the EAS council outlining steps that should be taken to reduce EAS emissions. While most of our recommendations — which included adding sustainability aspects to the selection criteria for future EAS meeting sites as well as our participation in the organization of the meeting — were not adopted by the EAS council, they did sign up for the UN Climate Neutral Now Initiative earlier this year.

The UN Climate Neutral Now Initiative encourages and supports organizations and other interested stakeholders to act now in order to achieve a climate neutral world by 2050 as enshrined in the Paris Agreement. An organization can become a participant by signing the Climate Neutral Now Pledge, which should be followed by actions to annually measure, report and reduce its emissions. We were excited that the EAS had committed to reduce emissions and, after two successful fully-online meetings, expected that the 2022 meeting would offer a hybrid component, especially as the meeting location, Valencia in Spain, is difficult to travel to by train. After all, many other astronomy societies such as the International Astronomical Union (IAU),

American Astronomical Society (AAS), Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA), Royal Astronomical Society (RSA) and Astronomische Gesellschaft (AG) are showing how a hybrid component can be added to in-person meetings. We had also planned to continue our series of conference sessions on sustainability in astronomy, which had been very well received in the past two years — and led to a number of publications in this journal. Among others, we showed that online meetings produce about 3,000 times less emissions than legacy conferences.

The EAS, however, did not offer a hybrid option for EAS 2022 — despite our protests — in order to ensure that the meeting attracted sufficient in-person attendees. They explained that the main reason for not offering remote access was to make sure there are enough people in Valencia to make the in-person experience worthwhile (and to pay the costs for the expensive meeting site). In a climate crisis, while still in the middle of a pandemic and now also a war fed by fossil fuels, and with all that we know about fostering inclusivity and accessibility, it is morally wrong to exclude those who are unable to travel to Valencia, especially when the technology for online and hybrid meetings has come so far in the past two years. Given the lack of a hybrid option, we were also practically as well as morally compelled to cancel our session 'Astronomy for Planet Earth: A Path to Zero Emissions'.

Furthermore, the EAS decided to prevent remote access to their general assembly, which makes it difficult for EAS members to contribute to the development of the society and pave a greener future. The pandemic presented us with an opportunity to accelerate our progress towards a zero-emission future, where meetings can be both inclusive and environmentally friendly. We are in a crisis and it is not enough to offer vegetarian meals and reduce the number of plastic cups, as well as other minor measures that the conference organizers have put in place to reduce the carbon footprint of the meeting.

As the EAS Advisory Committee on Sustainability, we have done all we can to urge the EAS to act. Ultimately, we are not

being listened to, and the EAS leadership clearly do not recognize the urgency of the climate crisis. We cannot tolerate this any longer — and we do not want to be labelled as greenwashers.

We call upon all astronomers, and in particular, on our professional associations, to show true leadership in securing a future for the next generations of astronomers. This is especially necessary so that astronomy can remain an active field of research also when priorities may shift, in response to the chaos that will result from the climate crisis. Astronomy and the space sciences provide humans with a unique perspective on our planet. Sharing this perspective has been recognized by many as a powerful tool to unite humanity in the struggle against global crises. But this special perspective and our high public visibility also come with a special responsibility: we have to demonstrate that we understand the urgency of the climate crisis. We have to walk the talk. □

Leo Burtscher ID <fnref n="1" />,²,³

Lola Balaguer-Núñez ID ²,³,

Valentina D'Orazi ID <fnref n="4" />, Didier Barret ID ⁵,

Tobias Beuchert⁶, Emre Dil⁷,

Agnieszka Janiuk⁸, Beatriz Mingo ID ⁹ and
Eloisa Poggio ID ¹⁰,¹¹

Published online: 21 June 2022
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01722-y

**Competing interests**

The authors declare no competing interests.

<footnote n="1">¹Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Huygens Laboratory, Leiden, The Netherlands. ²Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. ³Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), Barcelona, Spain.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Padova, Italy. ⁵Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Toulouse, France. ⁶TUM School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. ⁷Engineering Faculty, Beykent University, Istanbul, Turkey. ⁸Centrum Fizyki Teoretycznej PAN, Warsaw, Poland. ⁹School of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. ¹⁰Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France. ¹¹Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Pino Torinese, Italy.</footnote>

<footnote>✉e-mail: burtscher@strw.leidenuniv.nl</footnote>