We are petitioning Dr Hood, as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, to ensure that the University renews its commitment to using 100% renewable energy. A u-turn would be destructive both substantively and symbolically. The University must commit to a sustainable future.
We, the undersigned members of Oxford University, affirm our support for the University’s commitment to renewable energy and we believe that in April it should decide to continue purchasing 100 % green electricity and reject the regressive option of brown energy. We call on Dr Hood to ensure that a u-turn does not take place.
There is now international scientific and political consensus that climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the world today and that it has immense and serious implications for the future of the world’s population. It is accepted that human burning of fossil fuels is the biggest cause of climate change and renewable energy represents a substantive means of mitigation and one of the best bases for a sustainable future. This has been enshrined in international treaties and UK governmental policy.
In 2002 Oxford University took the ground-breaking decision to source 100% of its energy from renewable sources, leading the way for Cambridge and many other universities to follow, and in 2005 it renewed its commitment. It is currently the 11th biggest purchaser in Europe and also an international centre for climate change research, with its own Environmental Change Institute taking ‘energy and lower carbon futures’ as one of its three major research themes.
If Oxford University reneges on its commitment to green electricity then it will not only return to being a major greenhouse gas polluter, but it will also be damaging its status as an environmentally responsible institution and abandoning its role as a pioneer of implemented educational development.
This purchasing of green energy must also be accompanied by energy efficient practices and there remains huge scope for such measures at a departmental and collegiate level. With sufficient institutional leadership this would substantially offset any premium that renewing the green electricity commitment might involve. Climate change is an issue of such magnitude that even if short-term costs may be incurred, these are fully outweighed by the disastrous long-term consequences of a failure to confront the problem and take action.
The issue of climate change can no longer be ignored, and we call on Dr Hood to ensure that the University stays with 100% renewable energy and continues a substantive and symbolic commitment to a sustainable future.
