"That experience made me very selective – I’ve barely attended a conference in the last 15 years. I’ve discovered there are better ways to use my limited time and resources and more inclusive and equitable ways of disseminating research."

In 2014 he initiated a research programme with colleague Dr Debbie Hopkins to research the culture of academic flying at the University of Otago. As well as policy analysis, they carried out interviews with a diverse range of colleagues to find out why they flew and why they may have chosen not to.

"That confirmed the personal and professional benefits of attending academic conferences, presenting papers, and networking. But air travel also represents an enormous contribution to our carbon footprint and that was something many were finding increasingly difficult to ignore."

This year their collaboration extended to a project (led by Milan Klöwer, a colleague of Debbie’s at the University of Oxford) that was published in Nature in July 2020. It presented ways to slash the carbon footprint of academic conferences, using the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union as a model.

"The 28,000 delegates were calculated to have travelled 285 million kilometres and emitted an eye-watering 80,000 tonnes of CO2 in flying to attend. (This is about the same as a large city like Edinburgh emits in a week.) The majority of emissions were from inter-continental flights."

The authors proposed an alternative model with centrally located and virtually linked hubs in Europe, Asia and North America. This, along with increasing virtual attendance and biennial rather than annual meetings, could reduce the transport emissions of future conferences by up to 91 per cent.

James is not suggesting that academics stop flying to conferences altogether. "Living and working in Aotearoa New Zealand makes that an unrealistic and undesirable proposition. Our argument is that taking long-haul flights to attend annual conferences is grossly unsustainable."

He proposes that academics attend virtual conferences regularly, and try to fly much less frequently but stay abroad for longer periods.

"This ‘research and study leave’ model allows time overseas to engage in field work, conferences, networking, collaboration, writing and publication – all of those very good things."

Earlier this year when COVID struck, conferences were suddenly cancelled, postponed or moved online. When the European Geosciences Union meeting moved online, the number of delegates increased from 16,000 to 22,000, including attendees from 28 previously unrepresented countries.

"Interestingly, this highlighted barriers, inequities and privileges in the physical attendance model that we were either unaware of in the past, or prepared to ignore.

"The pandemic has forced us to do things differently. Although some people will want to rush back to a highflying life, if we’re open, we can maximise the many possibilities that are emerging in this new environment."