Fossil Free UCL

This week the UCL arm of the political movement Fossil Free took over a building in the UCL Quad in perhaps the world's first ever COPupation. Having broken into the De Vere building, which controversially costs UCL £500/day to use, on Tuesday the COPupation lasted until Thursday. On Thursday, the Fossil Free group left for Paris to join the march pressurising global leaders to reach a deal.

So what were the students protesting about? It's UCL's involvement with oil companies. UCL currently has £14million invested in oil companies. On these investments, it has actually lost £1.25million over the last financial year! On top of this, UCL has a policy of not investing in companies that conflict with research undertaken at UCL. Given the number of climate related papers published from UCL, particularly made academics in the Geography department, that highlight the role oil companies have in causing climate change, this policy promise is not being kept.

With this is mind, UCL Fossil Free is committed to pressuring UCL until they drop fossil fuel investments. Almost as expected, UCL has refused to comment on the issue. Furthermore, UCL Fossil Fuel cannot become a society within the union, as wanting to end UCL's association with Fossil Fuels is deemed 'too political'. 

If UCL ended its relationship with fossil fuels, as many other universities have done, it would be a powerful statement from a huge research institution that we are committed to a more sustainable future. Renewable electricity production is a more ethical investment on whichever scale you chose, so it would be great if UCL divested into that as an alternative.

But, given the refusal to make a statement and the continued investment in fossil fuel, this unfortunately seems unlikely. 

EDIT:

If you want to find out more, UCL Fossil Free held a debate last year, click here to read

If you're interesting in signing the petition 'UCL, DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS' written to Michael Arthur (UCL Provost) then click here. Thanks to Ben Ayre for these resources.