The work of climate scientists (latest IPCC summary published at the end of 2018) regularly highlights the harmful impact of global warming of 1.5°C on the Earth system and all its components (climate, biodiversity, human societies). This work has led all the world's countries to set themselves a target for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in order to limit warming to 1.5°C (Paris agreements, COP21).While this target already seems unattainable given the current acceleration in emissions (+ 2.2% / year), everything must be done to avoid exceeding the fateful threshold of 2°C of warming, beyond which the resilience capacities of systems would be exceeded, with an inestimable cost for living organisms, including our human societies.
M.I.O. scientists, who have been aware for several years of the impact of ongoing disturbances (global warming, habitat destruction, biological invasion, etc.) on natural marine ecosystems, are joining the call from young people around the world for the Climate Strike Week from 20 to 27 September 2019 on several levels:
MIO staff are committed to the labos1point5 approach, which aims to quantify the carbon footprint of their research unit and to put in place a multi-year plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They will also be working to reduce their ecological footprint in the broadest sense, by looking at waste production and management.
-The staff of the MIO support the mobilisation of young people that will take place during the week of 20 to 27 September to demand that politicians take real action to transform society.
-Staff will be taking advantage of this week to launch an initial mobility awareness campaign for students and staff on the Luminy campus and within the MIO, to encourage them to use soft modes of transport (bus, bike, scooter, walking) more frequently to get to the Faculty of Science.
-The MIO's teacher-researchers will use this week of general mobilisation to continue raising students' awareness of the notion of carbon footprint and understanding the phenomenon of global warming.
Understanding and knowing how to calculate your C footprint is the first step towards understanding the reduction challenges recommended by the IPCC and taking individual action on the most relevant levers:
The average carbon footprint of a French person is more than 11 tonnes of CO2 per year in 2019. This average includes direct and indirect emissions (imported products whose emissions are produced abroad, maintenance of the country's entire infrastructure). By 2050, we should have reduced this individual footprint to less than 2 tonnes of CO2 per year, which implies a reduction of all our emissions by a factor of 6. This is a considerable effort, and will necessarily involve greater restraint in our lifestyles and professional activities. There are a number of sites where you can calculate your ecological footprint.
The infographic below shows the orders of magnitude of emissions gains depending on the individual actions chosen. After demographic reduction, transport, energy and diet are the main levers for action to significantly reduce our footprint. The MIO's teacher-researchers have for several years been and will continue to be a permanent and recurring source of information for students in the various courses of study on the urgency of environmental issues. The help of researchers is essential here and, in the near future, it is also civil society that will have to be called upon to convey to citizens the urgent and inescapable nature of the profound transformation of our lifestyles to guarantee a liveable future for the next generation.
