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People and Planet warns universities are ‘set to fail’ carbon targets despite new climate commission
A sector-wide climate group has come under fire for being “vague and toothless” on the day it is officially launched.
On 13 November the Climate Commission for UK Higher and Further Education Leaders was officially unveiled at Ravensbourne University London. James Longhurst, assistant vice-chancellor at the University of the West of England and a member of the commission, said universities lacked a “clear and agreed road-map to emissions neutrality” before it was set up.
In a statement Longhurst said the commission—which counts Universities UK, GuildHE, and the Association of Colleges as members—would be “sector-led and action-focused” and would bring institutions together to work “in an unprecedented way to tackle the climate crisis”.
But Chris Saltmarsh, co-director for climate change campaigns at student environmental group People and Planet, told Research Professional News that the Climate Commission “appears vague and toothless”.
The commission is supposed to help universities and colleges meet the government’s target for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Over the next year it will create a strategy for combatting climate change, which it hopes to reveal at the UN’s climate change summit in November 2020.
But Saltmarsh says universities are already unlikely to meet an existing target to reduce emissions in 2020 by 43 per cent on 2005 levels. This is partly due to the Office for Students decision in July to end compulsory data collection on university estates, he says.
“Without pressure for the Office for Students to continue the mandatory collection of environmental data from universities, there is no accountability for institutions which look set to fail on their 2020 carbon reduction targets,” said Saltmarsh.
The Office for Students said it was unable to comment during the pre-election period. A spokesperson for the commission declined to add anything to the statement already made by Longhurst.