PICES Carbon Savings

PICES is committed to reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and to reducing negative environmental impacts of PICES meetings. We realize that in person meetings are a valuable and often a necessary tool for scientific exchange, however, recent events have shown us the value of virtual meetings. PICES envisions a way forward in which PICES Scientists will use a combination of virtual and in-person meetings. PICES will track its carbon impacts realized at its meetings, and will post those results here.

PICES thanks: Dr. Lalith Polepeddi and Dr. Kim Cobb of Georgia Tech. University for their input, the Pacific Climate Solutions for their published Carbon Calculation methodology, and the Japanese Climate Section for methodology review and checking of initial calculations completed by Lori Waters. Thank you to Saeseul Kim for the ISB-2021 calculations.

Carbon Tracking Resources

PICES Cumulative Carbon savings 2020-2021: 3253.95 tonnes **
(Details for each meeting shown below)

  • ISB-2020: 70.32 tonnes
  • AP-CREAMS 2020: 9.46 tonnes
  • MSEAS-2020: 182.41 tonnes
  • PICES-2020: 689.07 tonnes
  • ISB-2021: 102.26 tonnes
  • PICES-2021: 2200.42 tonnes

These Cumulative savings are equivalent to:

  • Taking 708 cars off the road for one year, or 13,160, 926 kilometres driven by an average passenger vehicle.
  • Not burning >1.66 Million L of gasoline, >1.63 Million Kg of coal, or 7,324 barrels of oil
  • CO2 taken up by 3987 acres of forest, or 53805 tree seedlings over ten years
**NOTE: PICES is endeavoring to determine our Carbon Dioxide emission savings realized by holding virtual rather than face-to-face meetings. However, there are limitations to how accurate we can be when calculating our overall emission savings, as it is likely that a significant percentage of attendees were able to attend because our meeting was held virtually and with no registration fee for participation, but that they would not have attended an in-person meeting due to economic or other factors.

Carbon savings: 2020 Virtual Inter-sessional Science Board meeting (ISB-2020)

The Science Board Chair, Vera Trainer, is pleased to report that by holding the Inter-sessional Science Board meeting (ISB-2020) virtually in 2020, PICES saved ~70 tonnes* of CO2 emissions. This meeting had 24 attendees representing 7 countries on 3 continents. *(70,322.10 Kg CO2).

70 tonnes of CO2 is equivalent to:

  • Taking >15 cars off the road for one year
  • Not burning nearly 30,000L of gasoline, ~35,000 Kg of coal, or 163 barrels of oil
  • CO2 taken up by ~92 acres of forest, or 1,163 tree seedlings over ten years

Carbon savings: 2020 AP-CREAMS Meeting

The AP-CREAMS Meeting had 18 attendees from five countries and two continents. By holding this meeting virtually instead of an in-person meeting, AP-CREAMS saved 13.85 Tonnes of CO2.

This is equivalent to:

  • Taking 3 cars off the road for one year
  • Not burning 5897L of gasoline, ~6943 Kg of coal, or ~32 barrels of oil
  • CO2 taken up by ~17 acres of forest, or 229 tree seedlings over ten years

Carbon savings: MSEAS-2020 meeting

MSEAS-2020, held virtually via Zoom, had 270 attendees from 5 continents, and saved ~182 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

This is equivalent to:

  • Taking >40 cars off the road for one year
  • Not burning nearly 30,000L of gasoline, ~91,245 Kg of coal, or 421 barrels of oil
  • CO2 taken up by ~223 acres of forest, or 3009 tree seedlings over ten years

Carbon savings: PICES-2020 meeting

PICES-2020, held virtually via Zoom, saved ~689 tonnes of CO2 emissions. This meeting had 475 attendees representing 7 countries on 3 continents.

This is equivalent to:

  • Taking >150 cars off the road for one year
  • Not burning ~293,480L of gasoline, ~345,429 Kg of coal, or 1595 barrels of oil
  • CO2 taken up by ~844 acres of forest, or 11,393 tree seedlings over ten years

Carbon savings: 2021 Virtual Inter-sessional Science Board meeting (ISB-2021)

PICES held its 2021 Inter-sessional Science Board meeting (ISB-2021) virtually, and saved ~102 tonnes of CO2 emissions. This meeting had 27 attendees representing 8 countries on 3 continents.

This is equivalent to:

  • Taking >22 cars off the road for one year
  • Not burning 43,445L of gasoline, ~51,137 Kg of coal, or 236 barrels of oil
  • CO2 taken up by ~125 acres of forest, or 1,687 tree seedlings over ten years

Carbon savings: PICES-2021 meeting

PICES-2021, held virtually via Zoom, had 656 attendees representing 31 countries on 6 continents, and saved ~2200 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

This is equivalent to:

  • Taking >478 cars off the road for one year
  • Not burning ~937090 L of gasoline, ~1102966 Kg of coal, or 5093 barrels of oil
  • CO2 taken up by ~2695 acres of forest, or 36377 tree seedlings over ten years