Re: [admin-discuss] Next steps towards a net zero IETF

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 13:20 -0400 John Levine
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> It appears that Greg Wood  <[e-mail]> said:
>> While skepticism about carbon offsetting is not unwarranted,
>> I can say with confidence that the IETF LLC staff,
>> Secretariat and other people who have worked on the project
>> were and are focused on doing what we can to improve the
>> actual situation, and not just appearances. IETF participants
>> have fairly consistently indicated they are in favor of being
>> more environmentally sustainable, and this seems like a
>> reasonable step towards that goal, while also being in scope
>> for the IETF LLC.
> 
> I don't think anyone doubts your good faith or the LLCs, but I
> also reiterate the point that carbon offsets are for suckers.
> 
> Earlier this year I virtually sat in on a seminar series at
> the Yale forestry school about how you design forest carbon
> offsets and it became clear that you have to make some
> extremely optimistic assumptions. You have to believe that
> whoever has sold you the offset will be able and willing to
> prevent logging in some remote forest for fifty years, and
> also that they won't turn around resell the same offset to
> someone else next year and the year after that. They talked
> about how one might audit these things, but it wasn't very
> persuasive.
> 
> We can certainly look at ways to decrease the amount of CO2 our
> meetings generate, e.g., by looking for venues that require
> less air travel, but we should not imagine that we can fix the
> rest of it by buying phantom offsets.

FWIW, my experience working with, and having discussions with,
professional foresters some years back (in a distinctly non-IETF
capacity) lead to conclusions completely consistent with John's
report.   There seems to be consensus on the scientific side of
the efforts that buying offsets gives relatively wealthy
countries and entities a license to do things that are
environmentally damaging while feeling good about it and having
others feel good about them.   That is not the same as
Christian's "basically all about PR" comment, but not enough
different to make a difference.

Like John, I don't think there is any doubt about your or the
LLC's good faith or good intentions.  

But I, at least, would like to see our energy --including
specifically studies of the carbon footprint of IETF
operations-- going into real CO2 mitigation rather than, to use
different words than others have, spending money to make us feel
better about the damage we are causing.  

Two suggestions, fwiw:

(1) If the right venue for a community discussion of this issue
is the IABOPEN session, I note that I've had conflicts between
that session and WG sessions I absolutely have to be in during
recent IETF meetings and have that problem again for IETF 116.
It is almost certainly too late for IETF 116, but, if  this
topic is as important to the community as we seems to agree it
is, can we move toward getting a dedicated slot for IETF 117?
That could be a second plenary, a session Sunday evening after
the reception, or a drastic restructuring of the Wednesday
plenary.  But if a discussion with, and including, the community
is important, then let's treat it that way and make it happen
rather that, however accidentally, exclude those who interests
and commitments drive them to sessions of WGs during the same
time slot.

(2) Again, with no implications about bad faith or even bad
judgment, it would be interesting to see a report on the carbon
footprint of staff (and contractor) travel to IETF meetings.   I
hope there have already been careful analyses of who is needed
onsite versus who can reasonable participate remotely.  In that
case, it would be helpful for the community to know what the
carbon impact curve looks like.  In the unlikely event that
analysis has not been done, I wonder how much carbon could be
saved by reducing the number of staff trips from far away.  That
is, of course, one of the types of calculations that makes
determining impact and offsets so difficult because  the actual
marginal carbon savings from emptying a few seats on a plane
that is going to make the trip any are probably close to zero.
Still, it would be interesting to know.

best,
  john