It's 2022, and the climate crisis is in front of our doorsteps. Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin, which swept across Europe earlier this year and disrupted the lives of millions of people, were only a taste of what's to come. For years, climate experts have warned us that once-in-a-decade storms and other extreme weather events will increase at an ever-rapid pace throughout our lifetime. The most recent scientific reports paint a dire picture: At the current course, the earth will already warm up to 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial age by 2030—ten years earlier than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018. According to the IPCC, more than three billion people's lives are already threatened by global warming, with droughts, flooding and wildfires leading to biodiversity loss, falling food production and an increase in water-related diseases on every inhabited continent.

The issues we face require sweeping changes, but addressing climate change is difficult because of the deep nuances involved. 100 companies may be responsible for 71% of global emissions, however industry-wide changes and individual contributions are still necessary and important. Within electronic music, one prominent factor includes the outsized carbon footprint of an internationally-touring DJ.

For most artists, whose livelihoods were threatened by the pandemic, the return to touring in 2021 was a much-needed lifeline, but in the ever-present reality of impending climate collapse, an increasing number of artists, festivals and labels are seeking out solutions to reduce their emissions. So what can the dance music community do when it comes to ensuring a sustainable future?

We've come to know carbon offsetting as one of the first practical steps for touring artists, as well as dance music fans who fly abroad for either nightlife or festival tourism.

Carbon offsetting is a process that allows individuals and corporations to reduce their calculated CO2 emissions through climate projects. Schemes for carbon offsetting vary, from investing in renewable energy projects like wind, solar and hydroelectric power to energy efficiency projects, with the most prominent offsetting scheme being land use and forestry projects. These can include financing programmes that protect existing forests and wetlands, like the Steart Marshes in Somerset, England, which are powerful carbon sinks.

"2019 was the first year I was touring quite heavily, and I started looking at solutions at ways to reduce my impact," says Darwin, the DJ and promoter who lives in Berlin and Mexico and whose Berlin-based clubnight REEF has raised funds for coral reef preservation projects. She offsets through Atmosfair, a German-based project recommended as an offsetting partner in last year's Clean Scene report, which she co-authored. Atmosfair advocates for a transparent approach to offsetting, and in contrast to other organizations offering offsetting, Atmosfair does not support forest projects as they are volatile. In 2019, ProPublica reviewed radar data for 13 forest protection sites in Cambodia to determine how much forest remained since the offsetting project was launched in 2008. The investigation found that as of 2017, only 46% of the forest remained. One of the protected areas, Angdoung Bor, which started out as 90% forest, was completely cleared out a decade later. Instead, Atmosfair invests in projects such as biogas production, hydropower and wind energy projects, as well as solar energy.

This is one of the reasons why Darwin insists that she doesn't believe in promoting offsetting, citing it as a last option for unavoidable travel. "It isn't a solution or something to feel good about. It's better than doing nothing, but what we need is to reduce our emissions with more efficient routing and alternative modes of transport."

In 2021, Clean Scene, a climate action collective founded by an international alliance of music industry workers, released their eye-opening report "Last Night A DJ Took A Flight". Based on data from RA, the report outlined that the top 1000 DJs collectively took 51,000 flights in 2019, emitting 35,000,000 kg of CO2 into the air. Air travel is the primary reason for dance music's outsized carbon footprint, and while passenger demand dropped by 75.6% below 2019 levels during the peak of COVID-19 in 2020, the aviation industry is steadily recovering and on its way to returning to pre-pandemic levels.

The results of the report sparked much-needed discussions among the dance music community about what actions could be implemented to create a systemic change within the industry. Dance music may only be a small sector compared to that of tourism, but historically, club culture has been a progressive force moving the needle in a positive direction on multiple social justice causes such as the rights of the LBGTQ+ community, anti-racism and feminism. Climate change is no different as an existential issue, and it’s up to the larger industry to enact more environmentally friendly practices.

One of the criticisms often raised at offsetting is that it can be a distraction to the real issue of climate change, allowing big companies and individual consumers to continue operating as usual. In April last year, more than 100 international companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, and PepsiCo announced their plans to start their climate transformation, with offsetting cited as one step of action to reduce emissions to net-zero by 2040. This alone should raise suspicions. How do large corporations manage to reduce their emissions and become climate-neutral in such a short amount of time? What’s more, there are examples of offsetting schemes displacing indigenous communities in favour of carbon offsetting reforestation projects.

"I don't think offsets are a distraction, but it's not the only solution," says Michael Fichman, a lecturer in City Planning and Urban Analytics at the University of Pennsylvania, longtime touring artist and DJ under the name Michael The Lion and part of DJs For Climate Action, a collective action group founded by Soul Cap's Eli Goldstein. "Roughly ten years ago, we ran an offsetting program that was created by Fools Gold producer Sammy Bananas," he explains. "This program began as a year-end drive to encourage artists to offset their emissions from airplane travel," adds Sam Posner AKA Sammy Bananas. "We ended up moving through a few different means of offset, starting with renewable energy credits and farm-based methane sequestration, and eventually clean cookstove projects aimed at reducing emissions." As the retail market for offsets grew more robust, DJ for Climate Action focussed their efforts on creating more unique ways to engage artists; through their platforms and creative expertise, and through advocacy efforts aimed at forward-thinking actions rather than redemptive, retroactive actions, like offsetting. "Projects like our Future Vision as well as Earth Night and the Climate Soundtrack all represent this direction of our work," says Posner. Since then, DJs For Climate Action has moved towards a broader approach where DJs can use their cultural prestige and platform to raise environmental awareness.

Ultimately, Fichman believes we have to move towards more sustainable living and lower consumption of gas, oil and meat, to name a few. In a paper published in March by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, authors Dr. Dan Calverley and Professor Kevin Anderson concluded that in order to retain a 50% chance of staying within the 1.5°C maximum warming target set by the Paris Agreement, wealthy, high-emitting countries would have to end all oil and gas production by 2034. "I think the price of carbon should be marketized and incorporated into emissions-causing products and services like air travel," Fichman adds. "People can make better travel decisions when actual costs of these mode choices are reflected in the prices." Fichman acknowledges that in Philadelphia, where he is based, artists and fans can use the subway and bring acts from cities nearby like DC or NYC with rail, "but that's not a possibility in most places. At the moment, the lack of mass transit infrastructure prevents this from working in Los Angeles or Houston, for example."

Berlin-based DJ Gigsta, who has been travelling to shows by train exclusively since 2019, shares this understanding. "My position as an able-bodied white person who grew up in Europe and currently lives in Berlin, a well-connected city, has allowed me to decide to stop flying," she says. "But we don't all have the same access to infrastructure, nor do we have the same responsibilities. Not everybody can start this journey."

And even in places like the UK and most of Europe, where an efficient railway system exists, transport systems aren't always a failsafe option for travel. When Gigsta was travelling back from a gig in Bristol in February, she was caught in the eye of Storm Eunice, with train cancellations delaying her journey home.

"We'll all need patience, which can seem paradoxical given how urgent the global situation is," she says. "Anytime I've found myself declining a tempting offer or stuck in a storm, I found strength in trying to see things from different angles." Aviation might make up only 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, but only 1% of the global population emits 50% of the CO2 from flying, "meanwhile the poorest people in the world suffer the most from climate breakdown."

While bold structural changes are needed, it's on all of us, artists and music fans, to rethink our relationships with the way we travel. "Flying is a social justice issue, as is the climate crisis as a whole," says Gigsta.

"Maybe the best thing for climate-conscious people involved in nightlife to do is get involved in broader advocacy for more sustainable cities with better mass transit—then we can make something happen," adds Fichman. "The carbon footprint of a party isn't just about how the headliner got there, it's about how all the people got there and how much energy they consume and how many materials get wasted at the event. We need to broaden our lens."

To learn more about what dance music communities can do about the climate crisis, read Chal Ravens' 2019 report.