NEWS

Today, on 8 March, 2022, we celebrate the international women’s day (IWD). It’s official campaign theme this year is #BreakTheBias. It underpins that to obtain a gender equal world without stereotypes and discrimination, everybody’s action is required.  This is a fight we should and will face together, because by getting rid of the bias we can see clearly the best ways to improve our society economically, socially and environmentally, as we will try to explain today.

In Pioneer we are dedicated to these goals, so while last year the women in the project had the stage, this year is the guys’ opportunity to express our support and break our biases, indeed, women and men need to self-reflect, unlearn the old ways and relearn based on principles of justice and equality. We, as scientists, understand that knowledge and education is the only way to change paradigms, so together we decided that it was a good opportunity for us, the male ESRs, to educate ourselves in the gender issue in order to bring important information for the community. 

For this, we had to take this mission very seriously not to invade women’s space and put too much of our unconscious bias into an article about bias, so the first thing we did was exactly what we would do to start any research: find relevant and reliable data. However, even scientific data (or its interpretation) is not free of some kind of orientation, not only because there is always some of the author (and the reader) in the work, but also because sometimes the problem is so complex that we cannot see it entirely in any simple manner. So while the data is extremely relevant, the interpretation may be taken with a wrong bias.

For example, we all hear about the gender pay gap, meaning the difference between the earnings of women and men. We are used to thinking that this data reflects straightforwardly the difference between the value of the work of different genders but that is not actually true (and this is not necessarily good news). Although this specific statistic is a fantastic way to simplify and show the problem, it is still oriented by, for example, the disproportional presence of women in certain sectors or activities. Let’s take a look at data from Eurostat on the gender pay gap in europe (Figures 1 and 2)

Figure 1: Unadjusted gender pay gap (%), 2018.  (Eurostat – Denis Leythienne, Marina Pérez-Julián – 2021)

Figure 2: Unexplained gender pay gap (%), 2018. (Eurostat – Denis Leythienne, Marina Pérez-Julián – 2021)

In order to address this problem, they tried to separate the gender pay gap that does not consider any kind of orientation in the data, called unadjusted gender pay gap, into two different data, the explained gender pay gap and the unexplained gender pay gap, meaning the part that is explained by other data like disproportional presence of women in certain areas and the portion that cannot be explained by that.

When we look at the data with that separation, the mean gap in Europe decreases by 3% if one do not consider secondary factors, but this is not the case for some countries, where women preference for certain jobs, for example, public administration, can increase the gap as it pays less in average than private corporations in most countries, except for Romania and Luxembourg, that not coincidentally, have the lower gaps when you look at the unadjusted data, but lose some positions when using the unexplained gender pay gap. 

Of course this is one in many other aspects explaining the difference in data, but we can highlight several others that, if we had equal pay to equal work, would end up in women being actually better paid than men in average. First, in most European countries (except Belgium and Switzerland), females have higher levels of education, are in jobs that are better paid (Exceptions to Cyprus, Austria, France and the Netherlands) and generally work in larger companies that also pay better. When we look from this direction, the inequality as a number (11.4% in the unexplained gap), takes larger proportions since we are not only paying less, we are paying less for better educated individuals who are in better jobs, on average. 

This whole system of discrimination perpetuates itself in many ways, the first one being precisely the economic one. Since there is this burden for women to succeed economically, and the structures of power are deeply rooted into financial value, they are denied important roles because they cannot compete with men who have easier careers, better paychecks and generally already access places and situations that lead them to positions of power. 

The lack of women in those positions, consequently, makes it even harder since they are  not included in the decision making and then we do not incorporate gender responsive approaches since it is not in the interest of the ones in power. This has negative effects not only on women of course, it denies society as a whole its full potential, because we are not giving the same opportunities for capable people to change things for the better, based on their gender. 

One great example of how this is detrimental for the whole society is climate change. First, the women are more affected by those catastrophes for the simple reason that they are already more vulnerable in society in the first place. This happens because, as we discussed, they have less money but also less rights, less freedom and are misrepresented. When a climate catastrophe like a fire, flood or drought hits, it hits women harder and they are at greater risk of being displaced, injured or killed, and the poverty arising from these issues can stimulate early marriages, prostitution and other abuses that are not a threat for the male population. 

Although they are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, since on average do not reach as many positions of power, they cannot use their perspectives to help on the issue, and this is a very clear effect of gender discrimination, however today we are diving into less obvious reasons and here is another one: when women are treated more equally in their professional lives, they have less children and with less population growth, it can be easier to tackle climate change. Of course this is a discussion of personal fulfillment and societal roles too, but again, if we allow women to succeed in their careers, we are offering them more paths and naturally, more of them will choose to dedicate themselves to the career, as we men can do with relatively fewer burdens. 

Again with data from Eurostat, women with children tend to be less employed, and when they do, they are more likely to have part-time jobs. Obviously, choosing not to have a career to take care of kids is definitely a valid option, but the real question is: why doesn’t this negatively affect the employment rates and the choice for part-time jobs for men too? On the contrary, having children actually increases the employment rate for men and decreases the likelihood of them to have part-time jobs in low, medium and high levels of education. The answer may be that, conflicted with harder career paths, lower salaries and overall more barriers to a successful career, some women decide to not engage directly into paid conventional jobs, assuming instead the unpaid and difficult job of taking care of the household.

Figure 3: Employment rate of women and men with or without children by educational attainment level and by working pattern, EU, 2020. Eurostat.

Finally, gender equality and women’s empowerment is extremely important for environmental policies, programmes and projects, leading to better outcomes. Women are responsible for a significant amount of farms, specially in lower-income countries, which can be run more efficiently if they are free from gender discrimination. Still, in some of the same countries women cannot access better equipment or funding, because they are not allowed to own land and thus cannot use it as collateral for loans or even are not allowed to get a loan without a man’s signature. 

In conclusion, it is clear that despite the “richness” of the country or the professional area, the equal participation of women and men is necessary. This is the only way to achieve a society that is functioning efficiently and at full capacity, a society where everyone can choose what to do and make a difference on it, a society where Gender-conscious steps are taken to address environmental topics, where women are in positions of power so they can look after other women, a society where in the case of climate catastrophes or wars, certain people are not treated with difference and we can all join our collective experiences to build a world that fits everyone individually and can be better for everyone as a whole.

Interested in the topic? Read more:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Employment_in_detail_-_quarterly_statistics&stable=0#Self-employment:_outline_and_last_developments

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20220307-1

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-statistical-working-papers/-/ks-tc-21-004

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Employment_in_detail_-_quarterly_statistics&stable=0#Self-employment:_outline_and_last_developments

https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/19954/feminism-and-environmentalism-go-hand-in-hand-its-gender-day-at-the-global-climate-talks/

https://grist.org/article/heres-a-way-to-fight-climate-change-empower-women/

https://unccelearn.org/course/view.php?id=39&page=overview

This text was written by Jairo Barauna and Maik Budde.

CoffeeBreakDown is a podcast-style Youtube channel with chats hosted by two budding scientists, Aaron Ho and Luca Vialetto. Their objective is to strengthen connections between the scientific world and the general public, starting with the field of plasma physics. Specifically, they believe that the expression of the more creative and human side of science is a crucial aspect that is often neglected in the community, as opposed to the technical and factual one. In the latest episode Maik Budde from the Pioneer Project and his colleague Tiago Dias joined to discuss fundamentals and application of low temperature plasma.

On 1^st of February 2022 the Supervisory Board of the Pioneer Project gathered online to set the course for the final year of the project. Everything was addressed: From the progress of the ESRs, to the planned trainings this year and eventually to the Pioneer Conference on green chemistry in Krakow. We are looking forward for an exciting 2022!

On November 28, 2021 we joined Les Festives, also known as The Sorbonne University Science and Culture Festival, where have been representing the Pioneer project at a dedicated booth showing material and challenging the guest with some quizzes on CO2 conversion, see here if you have not tried yet. Additionally, we organized an open table discussion about the question “What happens if we recycle CO2?”. We enjoyed the interaction with people outside our “science bubble” very much.

On November 25 & 26 the consortium met for this year’s evaluation meeting, either online or in person at the Jussie campus of Sorbonne University in Paris, France. During two productive days all ESRs presented the work of the last year. The focus was not only on polished results ready for publishing but also on encountered challenges and ways to overcome them. As you can imagine that sparked quite some scientific discussion! Furthermore, it will form the basis for the recommendations of each ESR’s personal committee for the further course of the work and their career in general.

Science is Wonderful is an initiative to bring together scientists and pupils from primary and secondary school to show them the magical world of science. Of course also also Pioneer participated in the program from November 22-26 , 2021. Among others, Carolina Garcia, Minh Nguyen Quang and Richard Engeln joined.

For the very first time all ESRs met in person from November 10 to 12 at the Autumn School 2021 at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. The first two days were entirely dedicated to soft skill development. From the Japanese philosophy of Ikigai to the expansion of your personal potential and eventually analytic storytelling a lot of important aspects were covered. Of course networking did not come off badly.

The last day was dedicated to the science. Instead of presenting the latest results individually the ESRs prepared group presentation within their workpackage, thereby emphasizing the connections between their projects and maybe even uncover a few new ones.

Wondering what a workpackage is? Just check here.

From 25th to 28th November 2021 interested people can enjoy four days of science and culture under the guiding theme “Let’s imagine the future!” during the Sorbonne University Science and Culture Festival.

Also we as Pioneer project participate in the festival to discuss the question “How can we recycle CO2?“. If you are in Paris we would like to invite you! (Sunday, Salle polyvalente, 3.45pm-4.45pm. Registration required.)

You can find more information here.

Carbon dioxide is demonstrated as the main component of the Carbon Cycle on Earth – a series of processes that transfer carbon in various forms throughout our ecosystem. Volcanic outgassing and wildfires are two major natural sources of CO₂ that should be named firstly. Respiration, the process by which organisms get energy from their food, produces carbon dioxide. Human activities, combustion engines or in the industry, all produce CO₂. As this would be, CO₂ is a very important part of the earth. It is a major greenhouse gas that aids in the trapping of heat in our atmosphere, our world would be inhospitably cold without it. However, when the CO₂ concentration grows, it contributes to global warming, thereby threatening to change our planet’s climate as average world temperatures rise. After industrial revolutions, CO₂ was thrown into the air, causing serious climate change and human issues.

CO₂ concentrations had risen sharply from pre-industrial levels of around 280 parts per million to over 410.5 parts per million by the start of 2019 [1]. Lately, the world was hit by a global pandemic known as coronavirus (COVID-19), which has spread to hundreds of countries worldwide, it spread quickly over the first few months across the world, infecting countries and territories, resulting in about 25 million confirmed cases and nearly 837000 fatalities. As of October 2021, the numbers are 235 million and approximately 4.9 million, respectively (recently updated data can be found in [2]). The entire Coronavirus Pandemic database may be reviewed here [3].

Lockdown orders had become the most important defensive front-line we’d ever had, with facemasks and hand sanitizer as our weaponry. Lockdown cities, school closures, transportation restrictions, industrial closures, company downsizing, and institutions, to name a few examples, have all been imposed by governments to regulate human activity in times of crisis. The spread of the COVID-19 was slowed as a result of these huge measures. At the same time, global climate data had changed dramatically for the first time in recorded history.

According to investigations conducted during the lockdown, CO2 levels have already decreased by nearly a fifth of all time, Fig.1, a huge number not seen since World War II.

Based on the fact that CO₂ levels fell by 17 percent in April 2020 compared to that of 2019, the first prediction anticipated that the CO₂ level would fall between 4.2 and 7.5 percent from last year. The amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere seems to have dropped as a consequence of enhanced social distance, which has led to the reduction of product consumption and manufacturing activities. Likewise, a decline in transportation operations contributed to the global fall in carbon emissions. Global aircraft traffic decreased by 60% during the closure, resulting in a short drop in CO₂ emissions relative to pre-crisis levels. According to CNBC [5], the United States led the way with a reduction of 12 percent in carbon dioxide emissions, followed by the European Union with an 11 percent lower. India experienced a 9 percent decrease, while China saw a 1.7 percent share. Scientists estimate that this cut may have saved at least 77,000 lives.

Simultaneously, analyzing the northern ozone hole reveals the smallest ozone hole ever seen in history, shrinking from 6.3 million square miles annually to less than 3.9 million square miles at the beginning of 2020. Fig.2. Previously, the Montreal Protocol, which limited the manufacture of ozone-depleting chemicals and was approved internationally in 1987, was mainly credited in major part for ozone recovery (Because the use of CFCs has already damaged the ozone layer). During the Crisis, according to NASA experts, ozone concentrations above Arctic parts of the planet dropped by around 240 Dobson Units (The Dobson Unit -DU is a unit of measurement of the amount of a trace gas in a vertical column through the Earth’s atmosphere) on March 12, 2020, compared to March 12, 2019.

The pandemic’s impact appears to have aided the ozone layer’s recovery since the urge to heal has accelerated the process.

In another development, the ozone hole over Antarctica rapidly expanded starting in mid-August and peaked at around 24.8 million square kilometers in September 2020, covering the whole continent with ozone layer depths as low as 94 DU. As temperatures rise high in the atmosphere in late spring, ozone depletion diminishes, the polar vortex weakens, eventually breaks down, and ozone levels recover to near-zero by the end of December. Since the time that the ozone layer was started monitoring 40 years ago, it was the longest-lasting and one of the biggest and deepest holes [6].

These are all promising information, nevertheless, might be far away from reality because it was projected based on all indications during a shelter-in-place order, and circumstances will alter afterward, particularly when tight limitations have been relaxed. Researchers anticipate that emissions will rebound at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, and they urge governments to include renewable energy and climate policy in their economic recovery strategies.

The fact that CO₂ emissions globally decreased by 1.4-1.5 percent during the Financial Crisis in 2009, but followed by a huge increase of over 5% [7] only a year after. The Washington Post [8] also reported that COVID-19 might stabilize the global CO₂ emission rate, but we shouldn’t be too relieved as evidence of the financial crisis. There is no surprise that CO₂ could be emitted in excess of it after this situation.

Back into 2017, the CO₂ emitted 2017 had an average concentration of 404 parts per million and keep reaching higher over the years. In 2019, it reached 410.5 parts per million, up 2.6 parts per million from 2018, and higher than the 10-year average. Although the carbon emissions decreased by 17 percent at their peak due to the lockdowns in late 2019-2020, the total effect on concentrations was extremely minor.

CO₂ recorded data keep growing in the second half of the year, following the prior pattern (Fig.3), notwithstanding the earlier effects of the crisis. The CO₂ emitted steadily rises, with statistics showing that the average CO₂ in August 2021 was 414.47 ppm, whereas it was 412.78 ppm in August 2020, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

The situation, as the evaluation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is still complex. CO₂ Global emissions fell in 2020, has minimal impact on overall carbon emissions due to seasonal and natural fluctuations. Wildfires burning through forests released carbon dioxide even as emissions fell, potentially at a rate equal to the modest fall in emissions owing to the pandemic’s diminishing effect on the global financial system.

So, did the epidemic demonstrate that we had already begun to cut carbon emissions?

Temporarily, the answer is “Sort of, but not much”. When emissions fall below a certain level, global warming draws to a standstill, and COVID-19 doesn’t appear to have changed much.

This text was written by Minh Nguyen Quang.

References

1. Lindsey, R. Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. Available from: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide.
2. Seo, H., Recent Scientific Progress on Developing Supported Ni Catalysts for Dry (CO2) Reforming of Methane. Catalysts, 2018. 8(3).
3. Covid-19 database. Available from: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus.
4. Global Monitoring Laboratory – Ed Dlugokencky and Pieter Tans, N.G.g.n.g.c.t. Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. Available from: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_data.html.
5. CNBC, E.N.-. Covid pandemic drove a record drop in global carbon emissions in 2020. Available from: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/covid-record-drop-global-carbon-emissions-2020.html.
6. Organization, W.M. Record-breaking 2020 ozone hole closes. 2021; Available from: https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/record-breaking-2020-ozone-hole-closes.
7. Peters, G.P., et al., Rapid growth in CO2 emissions after the 2008–2009 global financial crisis. Nature Climate Change, 2012. 2(1): p. 2-4.
8. The Washington Post. Available from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/06/coronavirus-could-halt-worlds-emissions-growth-not-that-we-should-feel-good-about-that/?arc404=true.