Despite an earlier decision to stop cooperating with the fossil industry, Utrecht University receives €1.5 million from oil company BP for research into renewable energy. This causes confusion: is the university ignoring its own rules?
After all kinds of student protests and discussion groups, the university decided in July 2023 not to establish any more ties with fossil companies. Unless they demonstrably contribute to the energy transition, in line with the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.
This poses a problem: to meet the Paris goals, oil and gas companies will have to take less fossil energy out of the ground in the coming years, and BP wants more. Nevertheless, the collaboration with BP, which was agreed in as early as 2022, fits within the energy transition, says professor of catalysts and energy materials for sustainable energy Petra de Jongh. She stresses that the research is aimed at converting waste into circular fuels.
Criticism
But according to Linda Knoester of Solid Sustainability Research, a Leiden research firm that studies the influence of the fossil industry on science and education, it seems that the university did not include the Paris goals in assessing the collaboration.
And this despite the university itself writing that there is a climate crisis – an emergency even. So a systemic change is badly needed, Knoester notes. “The IPCC notes that rapid and far-reaching transitions are needed for a liveable future. But research on liquid fuels aligns well with oil industry interests and actually perpetuates them.” (HOP, OL)
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