UBC declares a climate emergency
Credit to Author: Tiffany Crawford| Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2019 14:47:30 +0000
The University of British Columbia has joined a growing list of schools, communities, and countries around the world in declaring a climate emergency.
UBC president Santa J. Ono said the the UBC Board of Governors endorsed the declaration Thursday, and he thanked university students and staff for their activism in pushing UBC to act on the climate crisis.
However, at least one climate activist group on campus wasn’t happy with the announcement, and is calling for a firmer commitment to divest away from fossil fuels. The UBC Extinction Rebellion group is planning a hunger strike in January if UBC doesn’t act.
In declaring an emergency, UBC acknowledges “the climate crisis is posing and will continue to pose extensive and disastrous threats to peoples’ lives and livelihoods both locally and globally, contributing to famine, migration, and disease worldwide, including impact on individual physical and mental well-being.”
UBC said it will make decisions moving forward that will reduce emissions, and shift away from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources.
This decision, UBC says, is based on the best available science laid out by the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN Production Gap Report and the Paris Agreement.
UBC also recognizes that addressing the climate crisis is “critical to the university’s key functions of research, learning and engagement as UBC strives to prepare students for their futures and conduct leading research on pressing societal issues.”
Ono said he is establishing a climate emergency community engagement process to help manage a transition away from fossil fuels.
He said it will be essential that this process engenders transparency and accountability, connects to the school’s Indigenous Strategic Plan and Inclusion Action Plan, and commits to charting a globally ambitious future for climate action on campus.
The process will include, among other initiatives, establishing a climate emergency committee, and a resource website for community members to submit ideas and provide updates on progress.
Ono says the committee will make a report by spring with recommendations for action. The report will be submitted to the new Sustainability Committee of the UBC Board of Governors for consideration.
UBC’s announcement was met with skepticism from the UBC chapter of Extinction Rebellion.
The climate activist group acknowledged that the board voted to move 22 per cent of the funds from UBC’s endowment to a fossil-free fund and explore options to move to a full divestment. But the group said this isn’t enough and want the university to commit to an immediate withdrawal from any fossil fuel investments.
The group is threatening a hunger strike by students if more drastic action is not taken.
“The climate and ecological crisis takes precedence over our individual needs. This January, we will be putting our healthy bodies on the line. We will enact starvation so that this institution can visualize the real life consequences of its failure to act,” said Laura Sullivan, a student organizer at Extinction Rebellion UBC.
“As of today, UBC remains complicit in this catastrophe. UBC has 27 days to commit to our demands and avoid risks to their students today and the next seven generations to come.”
The groups says a hunger strike will begin Jan. 6, the first day of the term, if full divestment is not promised by the end of the year.
ticrawford@postmedia.com