A New, Greener Leaf for MIT Committees on Climate?
On Friday, September 13th, 2024, Professor Richard Lester announced the formation of the Ad Hoc Committee on Climate-Related Industry Engagements, charged with examining the question of whether or not President Kornbluth’s new Climate Project – an initiative to address the challenges of climate change—should accept funding from the fossil fuel (FF) industry. The Committee will deliver recommendations on this question by next summer.
An open letter urging dissociation from the fossil fuel industry in MIT’s new climate project
We, the undersigned MIT community members, are optimistic about the new Climate Project and are excited to see that MIT is committing its own money to this effort. However, we call for a commitment to prevent fossil fuel influence in this project.The fossil fuel industry has repeatedly demonstrated that they are unwilling to change their business model of indefinite oil and gas production, and association with the industry for climate and energy research is an inherent conflict of interest. For decades, MIT has accepted large sums of money from the fossil fuel industry for climate and energy research, and has allowed the industry to influence research directions. This has led to proven bias towards fossil fuels in our research [1], and a skewed focus on technologies that are favored heavily by the industry for the self-serving reason of promoting fossil fuel production while climate experts agree that production must fall. The new Climate Project is a fresh opportunity to shift our Institute’s research towards true climate solutions, free of the ulterior motives of the fossil fuel industry. To accomplish this goal, we call upon the leaders of the Climate Project and the MIT administration to fully dissociate from the fossil fuel industry by taking the following actions:
MIT Divest’s response to the Climate Grand Challenges
Climate change is not a crisis that will wait several years. Long-term investments into mitigation and adaptation are valuable, but not at the expense of immediate action.