Protestors called on University Council to act on the recommendations of the independent report the university commissioned nearly a year ago and finally reject fossil fuel funding.
On Friday (27/10), Cambridge Climate Justice (CCJ) held a rally on King’s Parade to demand a Fossil Free Research (FFR) policy finally be implemented at Cambridge. The university has yet to act on the recommendations of the Topping Report which they commissioned in December 2022, where UN High-Level Climate Champion for COP26 Nigel Topping recommended that the university cut all ties with the fossil fuel industry. It has also been well over a year since the international letter against fossil fuel funding was published, which is now supported by over 200 Cambridge academics.
More than 50 Cambridge students, university staff and community members rallied to demand an end to the months of delay in the process for Fossil Free Research at Cambridge, which began in the spring of 2022. Since then, the process has involved an occupation of the former BP Institute, two graces (motions) to Regent House (one attempted, one voted on) and related consultations and fly sheets, a five-month independent inquiry and countless demonstrations. Sam Hutton, undergraduate chair of the Cambridge SU Ethical Affairs Campaign, stressed the lack of urgency from the University Council, which has yet to ‘sign off on the report which they themselves commissioned’. Representatives from other local societies, such as Cambridge Student Action for Refugees (STAR), Youth For Ecocide Law Cambridge (Y4EL), and Cambridge Stop the War also joined the rally.
SLB Out campaigner Will Bajwa highlighted the major oilfield services provider hosted on university land: “Over by the West Cambridge site, you will find the SLB institute, supporting local research for global destruction. […] Only last month were two activists from ORCA, Organisation of Radical Climate Activists, glued onto the back entrance of the SLB institute.” Bajwa quoted one of the activists glued on, who said that, ‘‘Schlumberger actively boasts about how they are able to drill in protected areas in the Amazon rainforest, in the lands of indigenous peoples. And that is something that I want to hope that I am part of the fight against.”
In his speech, Cambridge Climate Justice campaigner and Natural Sciences student Sam Gee reminded attendees of a core tenet of Fossil Free Research: “We cannot trust those who have profited extortionately off such harm to so many to provide the solutions to the crisis they themselves have caused.” Academic Emily Sandford, an astrophysicist, similarly added that our institutions, despite verbal statements to the contrary, are acting in a way that seems to “deny the scientific consensus.”
As Cambridge Climate Justice spokesperson and Environmental Policy student Slaveya Zaharieva said, “fossil fuel funding has been shown to distort climate research outcomes in favour of the fossil fuel industry. This conflict of interest threatens Cambridge’s reputation as a leading research institution. Impartial and objective research is essential in ensuring academic integrity and freedom.” Despite this, UK universities took £40 million of fossil fuel money in the last year and Cambridge itself has taken nearly £15 million from oil companies since 2017. “The University may try to kick the can down the road, but pressure will continue building from students, academics and the local and international community alike. Just like divestment, this is an issue that won’t go away until the job is done,” Zaharieva continued.
Reiterating the group’s commitment to intersectionality and global justice, a five minute silence was held to mourn the lives taken and affected by the Israel-Hamas conflict. Protestors put down their placards in solidarity with those affected.
The rally was closed by Joycelyn Longdon, a prominent climate activist, PhD student and creator of educational project Climate in Colour, who stated that universities taking fossil fuel funding are “complicit [in] … a system that prioritises profit over people.”