BBC FUTURE: Why ‘flight shame’ is making people swap planes for trains

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Alice Larkin, a climate scientist at the University of Manchester who has not flown for over a decade, argues that institutions need to change their expectations of how often their staff fly.

“I can imagine a world in 20 years’ time where people laugh about the fact that we used to fly halfway around the world to have a meeting – it’s like, why would you do that?” she says, adding that good virtual connections could go a long way towards reducing flights for meetings.

Larkin thinks it is particularly important for academics working in climate change to set the example by reducing their flying. “If you go to your GP and they are sitting there smoking and they are telling you to give up smoking,” she says. “Then you think, ‘Well, I'm not sure I believe that it’s actually bad for me.’”