It is time: cut the ties with the fossil fuel industry
The Dutch version appeared in the Mare today — you can view it online here. This is an English version of the same article.
On the 27th of September, Leiden University will host a debate about the relationship between the university and fossil fuel firms. This is the perfect opportunity for the academic community to come together to demand that all ties between the university and the fossil fuel industry be cut, argues Gerrit Schaafsma.
The university leadership is to be commended for hosting an event where the academic community can come together to discuss our role in the worsening climate crisis. Such a debate is long past due. We need to make a collective, conscious decision: either we continue to support the fossil fuel industry by collaborating with them, or we make the bold choice to end all cooperation with them and focus our efforts on supporting research that contributes to the radical transformation necessary to respond to the climate crisis.
Fossil fuel industry is opposed to the energy transition
The university community has a moral obligation not to work with an industry that is at odds with an important part of the mission of the university, which is to act as a ‘reliable authority in societal and political debates’. Continued collaboration with the fossil fuel industry radically undermines the ability of the university to be a reliable authority on issues related to the climate crisis. This is because the fossil fuel industry has spent billions of euros over several decades to undermine scientific work on the effects of continuing to release massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Major fossil fuel firms like Shell and ExxonMobil have participated in disinformation campaigns seeking to deny the existence of climate change, or to delay action that would reduce its impacts.
Many of these campaigns continue to this day. This is also the case here in Leiden. In response to a freedom of information request by the Mapping Fossil Ties initiative, it has revealed that the oil giant Saudi Aramco (which has recently been called out by UN experts because of the dangers its continued operation pose to human rights) has sponsored academic projects at Leiden University. The same goes for other major fossil fuel firms like Shell and Total. By working with firms that take part in these campaigns, we implicitly condone their practices and in doing so, undermine our own reputation. It would be irresponsible for Leiden University, which is committed to the search for truth, to ally itself with an industry which has for decades sought to hide the truth about the effects of its activities.
From a scientific standpoint there is no reason to continue working with an industry that seeks to profit from expanding oil and gas production. A 2021 report from the International Energy Agency makes it clear that no new fossil fuel projects can be launched if planetary warming is to remain below 1.5 degrees centigrade. According to research by the IPCC, if we continue to burn fossil fuels at current rates we will draw down the remaining carbon budget for staying below 1.5 degrees in less than ten years. Yet firms like Shell, ExxonMobil and Total have plans to vastly increase their production. In fact, many of these firms have recently scaled back commitments to reduce their emissions and none of them have credible plans to reach net zero. Continuing to work with these firms legitimizes their plans to violate the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. It would be a grave mistake for Leiden University to cooperate with these firms when their actions are so fundamentally at odds with the science of the IPCC and the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Supporting the energy transition
Some have argued that fossil fuel firms, when working with universities can play an important role in facilitating the energy transition we need. In fact, the opposite is true: working with the fossil fuel industry will fundamentally undermine that effort and serves only to slow down the necessary transition. We know that the fossil fuel industry has, for decades, resisted attempts to shift towards more sustainable ways of producing energy. Working with them now, even on projects that might play some role in the energy transition, would only facilitate their greenwashing efforts. The few ‘green’ projects sponsored by the fossil fuel industry are camouflage for their primary activity: extracting and profiting from fossil fuels. For every euro that is spent by the fossil fuel industry on oil and gas drilling and exploration, only 4 cents is spent on clean energy or carbon removal.
The ‘sustainable’ projects sponsored by fossil fuel firms (e.g. green hydrogen), are an attempt to change the public perception of their actions and do not form part of a comprehensive effort on their part to transition away from fossil fuels. There is ample evidence for this: Shell has made a U-turn on its climate ambitions and has plans to invest four times more in expanding fossil fuel production, compared to its ‘low-carbon’ products like hydrogen and carbon capture. By making the decision to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry, the university helps to send a signal to policymakers and the public that these firms are not currently reliable partners for addressing the climate crisis. This is not to say that the position of fossil fuel firms cannot change in the future — firms that commit to credible plans to end fossil fuel production and shift to renewable energy could be important partners at some point in the future. However, this is not currently the case and the prospects of this happening seem remote.
The fossil fuel industry not only plans to continue expanding, they are actively working to prevent efforts to regulate their activities. The latest IPCC report makes it clear that “climate science has been undermined significantly by climate change counter-movements, in both legacy and new/social media environments through misinformation, including about the causes and consequences of climate change”. . By working with fossil fuel firms, Leiden University would be actively aiding an industry that is one of the major reasons why more substantive action on climate change has not been taken. Evidence also shows that when fossil fuel firms sponsor academic initiatives the findings produced by academics tend to favour the oil and gas industry; when there is no funding by the fossil fuel industry the findings tend to be more favourable to renewable forms of energy. The only way for Leiden University to remain a reliable partner in social, political and scientific debates is for it to stop collaborating on research with the fossil fuel industry.
Committing to sustainability
One of the biggest misconceptions is that we need to continue working with the fossil fuel industry in order to reduce carbon emissions. Some have argued that we cannot have a modern industrialized economy without a significant fossil fuel sector. This is at odds with recent scientific and economic research, which shows that transitioning to wind, water, solar and battery storage technologies can provide reliable and cheap energy that is able to replace virtually all of the energy that we currently get from fossil fuels. We cannot end our reliance on fossil fuels overnight, but we need to make sure that we work with partners who are committed to rapidly phasing them out.
Senior global environmental leaders like Al Gore and former climate negotiator Christiana Figueres have called out the fossil fuel industry for working against the development of renewable energy and for ‘anti-climate plotting’ that contributes to the climate crisis. The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, recently said that we have entered “the age of boiling” and called for immediate, swift action to radically reduce fossil fuel emissions. The evidence for climate change is all around us, from wildfires in Canada and the Mediterranean, to flooding in Spain and China. What role can a university play in addressing the climate crisis? By using its privileged economic and social position to finding solutions to the many climate-related issues we face. It is encouraging that Leiden University has chosen ‘sustainability’ as its theme for the coming academic year. There are sure to be many admirable initiative and projects that follow from this. However, the best way of showing its commitment to sustainability, would be to completely cut ties with groups that are actively working against efforts to tackle the climate crisis. This means cutting all ties with the fossil fuel industry.
Gerrit Schaafsma works at Leiden University College, where he teaches climate ethics and politics.
