Climate action on campuses is far too slow to help avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

Only 35% of college and university campuses are taking the necessary steps to be carbon neutral by 2050.  Another 30% will lag by 15 to 25 years.  All the rest are hardly moving.  Worst of all 35% of all undergrad and grad students attend institutions that have no climate action plans.  When will these campuses be carbon neutral?  Nearly never.

Here’s the snapshot.

Half of all US undergrad and graduate students attend institutions that will not achieve carbon neutrality until 2065 or later.  Almost all institutions tout sustainability as a core value, but for most this is a concept without a plan or measurable goals.  Much of US higher education has talked the talk but is failing to walk the walk.  Criteria and Methodology can be found here.

In Universities on Fire, Bryan Alexander documents current academic responses and takes a futurist’s view of the implications for teaching, research and the world into the 22^nd century.  What are colleges and universities doing with their vast knowledge of this crisis?  To be sure, climate-related and sustainability course offerings have increased.  Some institutions have disinvested in fossil fuels.  Scientists are adding more accurate predictions of the consequences of our unintended geo-engineering of the planet.

It is ironic that academic institutions have been so slow to respond to a crisis they have defined and documented in ever exacting detail.  Without this knowledge we wouldn’t even know or understand what is happening.

The first hint of potential climate change came from Swedish professor, Svante Arrhenius, in 1896.  Since then, academic scientists have made our knowledge of the climate crisis more certain.  Due to this academic work, we know those living in 2050 will see a planetary temperature that is 1.5 to 2.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.   If, in the meantime, we don’t take aggressive action to limit greenhouse gasses, we now know we will blow past 2.5 degrees C by 2065.  We know that this is already baked in unless we act now.

Changing these trajectories will require personal, professional and collective action.  I am appealing to all who are involved in managing and creating the physical campus.  Whether you are on staff or a consultant, evaluate your own institutions and clients.  Use the assessment criteria on which this post is based.  About two thirds of you will find that your institutions are part of the problem rather than the solution.  You and your colleagues can help to accelerate each campus to carbon neutrality.

I understand you can act only within the limits of your responsibilities.  I understand this is more than getting the physics right.  If your governing boards are controlled by fossil fuel interests, you need to be careful.  Still, responding to the climate crisis is part of your professional responsibility.  This is not easy or risk-free.  The inertia of obsolete attitudes, processes and patterns of operation can be overwhelming.  This is a complex and long-term effort, akin to turning and then stopping an aircraft carrier.

If you want to discuss, be in touch.  The campus climate action advisor is on duty.

Earlier posts on climate change

Campus – Climate Action and Inaction – Part 1

Campus Adapting

Campus – Accelerating to Net Zero