As tired politicians agreed on yet an- other climate deal at COP21 in Paris last week, UCL was there in force – its aca- demics were in the media so much you’d think Bloomsbury was at risk of disap- pearing under rising sea levels. While it’s not surprising that London’s global uni- versity was so well represented at a con- ference attended by nearly 200 nations, UCL is just as much a part of the problem as it is the solution to climate change.
UCL still has tens of millions of pounds invested in energy giants which contribute to global warming (see CG50), and companies are keen to buy into UCL’s credibility. BHP Billiton, the mining company accused of unethical practices in countries such as Indonesia and Colum- bia, has ploughed money into UCL in recent years, helping to found UCL Aus- tralia and funding the dubiously named UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources.
The perceived conflict of interest be- tween BHP Billiton’s business interests and the university’s independence led to Professor Jane Rendell, a Vice Dean of Research, resigning from her post in 2013 after the college failed to show it had un- dertaken processes to protect the inde- pendence of research. Rendell later said in an interview that “if UCL’s brand is one of academic independence then it could be somehow threatened by this relationship.”
The mining company should have some sympathetic ears at the Paris confer- ence however, as Michael Grubb, Profes- sor of International Energy and Climate Change Policy at the ISR, is serving as an advisor to the British delegation at COP21. Last month the ISR’s director Paul Ekin called for a climate deal in which countries “contribute a fair share, with de- veloped countries leading the way”, but happily neglected to single out industry’s damaging role in climate change. Ekin has previously assured The Cheese Grater that “UCL pursue research and organise activities unrelated to the company’s busi- ness” (see CG45), but the Institute’s future is still reliant on the benevolence of big business.
Last week student campaign group Fossil Free UCL occupied a pop-up mar- quee in the quad, calling yet again for the university to withdraw all its investments in fossil fuels. Professor Michael Arthur, College’s Provost, has already said that he won’t consider divesting from energy com- panies in the near future, not only because it’s so lucrative but also because cutting links with the industry could piss off stu- dents and academics in departments such as Engineering. It’s unlikely Fossil Free’s brief occupation – which involved the decorating of a ‘divestmas tree’ and a free film screening – will do much to change his mind. After a couple of days the activists packed up their sleping bags and jumped on the Eurostar to harangue politicians at the conference instead.
In a statement, Fossil Free said “Ditch- ing investments in companies dedicated to exploring for, extracting and burning fossil fuels would be a vital first step. In the face of this responsibility, UCL’s willful silence on this issue speaks volumes.”
As UCL is so keen to be known as Lon- don’s global university, it’s unsurprising that managers are just as preoccupied with climate change as the rest of the world.