Climate Action Task Force Becomes a Permanent Committee
Culminating five years of work to address the carbon impact of the AAG annual meeting and other activities, the Climate Action Task Force has been approved by Council to transition to a permanent committee. In its new capacity, the Climate Action Committee will continue to monitor and address the climate impacts of AAG’s efforts.
The committee was established as a task force in 2019, as the result of a petition signed by over 200 members of AAG, asking the association to take concrete steps toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions related to its activities. A focal point of this request was the AAG annual meeting. Reflecting the recommendations of the IPCC 2018 special report, the petition asked that the AAG cut emissions by 45% by the year 2030 and reach net zero levels by 2050. The petition laid out specific actions that AAG should take in experimenting with low-carbon conferencing and in establishing a systematic measurement and auditing system to emissions related to the annual meeting.
Since then, the committee has collaborated closely with AAG Council and staff to create and implement AAG’s first-ever road map for reducing emissions from the annual meeting. Over the past several years, and in the face of unexpected challenges like COVID-19, the committee gathered recommendations from members, studied the actions other organizations took to reduce their carbon footprints, and helped AAG enact steps to innovate in every aspect of its plans for convening. Among many innovations the committee has introduced are the sponsored local nodes for remote attendance at the meeting, ways to address hybrid and remote convening, and approaches to measuring impact.
Specific accomplishments of the committee to date:
- Supported AAG’s rapid move to a virtual format in 2020 as the pandemic began;
- Consulted with AAG on the “Regions Connect” coordination effort to conduct virtual regional division meetings in 2021;
- Organized special sessions for the AAG annual meeting in 2020, 2021, and 2022, including keynote speeches by Kevin Anderson (2020), Naomi Klein (2021), and Debbie Hopkins (2023), and a 2021 roundtable conversation with members of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, who have organized nearly-carbon-neural conferences, beginning in 2018;
- Conducted a survey of association members regarding the AAG annual meeting and climate change; this survey indicated that a strong majority (67%) was in favor of reducing carbon emissions related to the annual meeting;
- Development of a double special issue of the Professional Geographer in 2022 (Volume 74, Issue 1) aimed at imagining alternative, low-carbon futures for the AAG that are environmentally and socially just;
- Organized two inaugural regional nodes for the annual meeting in 2023, one held across three universities in Montreal and another organized in the Geography Department at CSU-Fullerton; this effort expanded to eleven nodes in 2024; and
- Worked with AAG staff to experimented with virtual networking;
- The questionnaire that the committee worked with AAG to conduct has also led to AAG’s full divestiture from fossil fuel-driven investments in 2023.
The Climate Action Committee has provided an important forum for discussion of the responsibility for climate action within academia. In addition to the presentations and convenings noted above, publications have included the Professional Geographer special issue, and the documentation of the 2023 plenary lecture and forum in a special issue of ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies.
This questionnaire also affirmed AAG’s decision last year to move from its former headquarters on 16th Street in Washington, DC to a more energy-efficient, LEED Gold and Energy Star certified office suite on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House. Remarkably, the cost to maintain the new office is equivalent to the cost of owning and managing the old building, while also adding accessibility, energy efficiency, and larger conference spaces.
“Partnering with the task force has helped the AAG make rapid progress on every aspect recommended by the member survey – we couldn’t have done it without their support and guidance,” says Executive Director, Gary Langham.
As a result of the work of the work by members of the task force and committee, the AAG has committed to attaining the goals set out by the original petition and has taken multiple actions to reach them. Fulfilling these goals (45% carbon reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050) will be challenging. As the Climate Action Task Force shifts to the standing Climate Action Committee, the center of its work will be to find ways to help AAG and its members make a real and sustained transition to low-carbon conferencing and other professional practices.
For information on additional actions AAG undertook in response to or confirmed by the questionnaire, see executive director Gary’s Langham’s overview. Check the 2020 Task Force Report and 2021 Task Force Report for more fundamental information on the Climate Action Committee’s first five years.
AAG would like to thank all the continuing members of the new committee who will maintain their involvement and Wendy Jepson, co-founder and past chair of the Task Force, to whom we owe a tremendous debt for her time and expertise.
AAG Climate Action Committee Members
- Pam Martin (co-chair)
- Betsy Olson (co-chair)
- Dydia DeLyser
- John Hayes
- Rebecca Lave
- Joe Nevins
- Tom Ptak
- Shaina Saidal
- Ryan Stock
- Farhana Sultana
- Emily Yeh
- Staff Members: Oscar Larson, Elin Thorlund, Gary Langham
