The hastily relocated COP25 meeting has just begun in the capital of Spain when I sit down to write this reflection about the Academy and environmental responsibility. The climate summit was planned to be held in Chile, but had to be moved because of political unrest in the country. The world-famous, loved and hated climate activist Greta Thunberg – I prefer to call her a leader – has just reached land in Portugal after a three-week sailing trip from the United States. The motto of the UN conference is #TimeForAction and indeed that is what is needed. The imperative of the Paris Agreement is radical change. So it is high time to act differently in response to the climate crisis (and other severe environmental problems for that matter). However, it is not only politicians, industry leaders and other influential decision makers in society, so-called ‘people of power’ that we academics often point at and rightly criticise, that need to make a move. It is not only ‘them’ that need to do more. So do we! Academics of all sorts and the Academy as a whole, a powerful institution also in this post-political era, ought to take action in order to find out what #TimeForAction means. In the end I would argue it is a matter of legitimacy and leadership. Because who are we otherwise to tell ‘others’ what to do? How can we justify a leadership position in terms of scientific knowledge and claims if we cannot even ‘walk the talk’ ourselves?

Up until now the mobilisation of our knowledge institutions is largely missing. Time flies and we mainly sit still and watch it all happen in front of our eyes as if the common future was not at stake. Instead, we need to develop multiple approaches that genuinely care and cater for the commons in varied ways, both now and in the future. We need viewpoints that are able to analyse and communicate the perspectives of humans, other living beings and the environment as a whole.

Please do not get me wrong in the sense that I believe that there is one easily defined progressive way forward to tackle complex issues such as climate change. On the contrary, as environmental communication scholars have shown us time and again, global environmental problems have different local facets and expressions. They therefore require diverse responses at the local level. Perhaps that is why we tend to lose sight of them, even if academics should be relatively well equipped to understand such complex wide-reaching problems at multiple levels? Global challenges demand a variety of local responses from us. That we situate ourselves in specific contexts. That we stop pointing fingers at others. That we also turn the gaze on ourselves.

And may I add that contemporary hegemonic political regimes’ one-dimensional way of tackling climate change as basically a matter of individual consumption and life-style choice, is simply flawed. It will not lead the way. Nor will the temporary increase in public interest for these issues each year during COP meetings, when our news media are full of climate reports, or when alarming results from the IPCC panel are published, also regularly well covered by journalists around the globe. Such ritualised media climate events have also formed the research agenda for many media and communication scholars ever since 2009 when COP15 was held in Copenhagen. There is nothing wrong of course with studying the public discourse on climate change in detail during those specific periods in time. But I have often wondered what is going on in between those events and in more peripheral places or media outlets that are not populated by (inter-)national elites?

Even if I make this bold statement about a climate ignorant Academy, it would be to go too far were I not to acknowledge that there are exceptions here and there of more progressive movements and reflected leadership within universities and research organisations. The collaboration between IAMCR and IECA to give out The Climate Communication Research Award is one such example. But if we zoom out and take a bird’s eye view… I am afraid to say that the Academy in general has still not changed. Universities and other research institutes belonging to the higher education sector, embarrassingly also in the wealthier Western part of the world that I know more about (and happen to be born in), have not moved much at all in terms of changing practices and priorities in response to the current climate crisis. And I do not think that the status quo is the result of conscious decisions.

One could argue that we tend to hear official statements from our representatives more often about the magnitude of the complex and global challenges foreseen by the research community, should the average temperature rise by more than the 1.5 degree Celsius target. True, and there are also better conditions today than previously to fund climate-relevant research projects. At the same time, we have failed to seriously reflect upon the sincere and specific meaning of the climate crisis when it comes to our own missions, work and activities. Not many of us are even aware of the carbon footprint we make as individual academics when working, let alone the total environmental impact of our own universities, or research networks and affiliated member organisations for that matter. What does #TimeForAction mean for how we conduct research and educate? What does it mean for all our areas of work, and specifically in relation to media and communication studies? Media and communication industries are central study-objects, including the digital transformation of our communication practices and societies. But are we sufficiently informed about the environmental impact of these businesses and processes? I would say no. And what is it that we focus on, or fail to focus on, in our activities that contribute to the current crisis? Are there alternative, more sustainable ways of working that would be worth testing out to help us to manage e.g. the need for less fossil-fuelled travels, while at the same time enhancing interaction among scholars? Such types of questions are key for research associations like ECREA to focus on.

But let me end this critical (self-)reflection on the Academy on a more positive note. It concerns one small adjustment with good results that we introduced during my time as chair of the Science and Environment Communication section in ECREA that might work for others as well? Instead of travelling across Europe every year to meet, we made sure to arrange each biannual SEC event either in the form of a travel-free meeting like a webinar, or close in time and location to another big conference such as IAMCR, ICA or COCE, since many of us were already planning to attend those as well. Not only could we decrease our collective carbon footprint, we were also able to establish better connections with scholars who had no funding for travels, or who came from other parts of the world outside of Europe, since they could participate as long as they had internet access. But that does not mean that using digital tools alone will save us. Articulating what #TimeForAction means for the Academy simply requires much more work from us all then that.

Dr Annika Egan Sjölander, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Media Studies, Umeå University, Sweden. Also former chair of the Science and Environment Communication Section in ECREA (2012-2018).