At least in my discipline (political science), the old model of the big international association conference has been less and less useful over time. Even if we did not have climate concerns (and long before Covid-19), such gatherings arguably have allowed less meaningful intellectual engagement than a well run online seminar on some defined research topic.
Now that we have the tech, we should dedicate ourselves to this model as the default, rather than flying off to conferences with their high carbon impact.
Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis, and Affiliated Professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. I work on democratic institutions and policy-making, and teach courses on, among other topics, Climate Change and Politics.