Estimating Meetings' Air Flight $CO_2$ Equivalent Emissions An Illustrative Example with IETF meetings

TL;DR

This paper introduces CO2eq, a tool for estimating air travel-related CO2 emissions, applied to IETF meetings, revealing their significant environmental impact and suggesting sustainability measures like reducing meeting frequency and promoting remote participation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel CO2eq tool for quantifying air travel emissions and applies it to IETF meetings, highlighting their environmental impact and proposing sustainability strategies.

Findings

IETF meetings generate CO2 emissions comparable to coal-powered countries.

Participation in a single IETF meeting equals the per capita emissions of some European countries.

Reducing meeting frequency and enhancing remote participation can mitigate environmental impact.

Abstract

These notes describe CO2eq a tool that estimates $CO_2$ equivalent emissions associated with air traffic and applies it to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an international standard developing organization that meets 3 times a year. CO2eq estimates that the participation to IETF meetings (by a single participant) generates as much $CO_2$ equivalent as the $CO_2$ emissions per capita of European countries generating their energy using coal -- like Germany or Poland for example. This suggests some radical changes should be considered by the IETF. According to the conclusion of the $26^{th}$ Conference of the Parties (COP26) from the United Nations Secretary-General Ant\'onio Guterres; in 2021, the number of meetings should be limited to a maximum of one meeting per year. In addition, the incorporation of sustainability principles into the IETF's strategy, should include, for example, increasing the effort to enhance the experience of 'remote' participation as well as adhering to programs (such as for example the United Nations Global Compact and the caring for climate initiative) to align its strategy and report progress toward sustainability.