Fossil Free Research campaign backed by Cambridge academics and Nobel Prize winners
A new campaign called Fossil Free Research has released an open letter signed by leading academics urging US and UK universities to instigate a ban on accepting funding for climate change, environmental and energy policy research from the fossil fuel industry.
Prominent signatories include Nobel prize recipients Eric Chivian and Gary W Yohe, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and paleoecologist Dr Jacquelyn Gill. Representation from Cambridge includes Sir Thomas Blundell of the department of biochemistry at the University of Cambridge; mathematician and fellow of Trinity College Sir William Timothy Gowers; and former master of Magdalene College, Dr Rowan Williams.
The letter cites the fossil fuel industry’s “extensive record of spreading climate disinformation, anti-climate lobbying, and refusal to align its core business practices with the demands of climate science”.
It argues powerfully against partnering with the fossil fuel industry for research aimed at addressing the climate crisis that this industry created and continues to perpetuate.
“For climate research to be truly in the public good, it must be free from the ties of the special interest groups that put us here in the first place,” said signatory Dr Gill, associate professor of paleoecology & plant ecology at the University of Maine.
“Our universities must be climate leaders, not climate laggards,” said signatory Peter Kalmus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the UCLA Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering.
“That means refusing to lend their reputations to fossil fuel industry greenwashing and ensuring the integrity of research that shapes public discourse and policymaking on the urgently-needed energy transition.”
The letter has been signed by more than 500 leading academics and climate experts from more than 125 universities worldwide. Full details are at fossilfuelresearch.com.
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