Grace for submission to the Regent House under Special Ordinance A (ii) 5 (fossil fuel industry ties)
21 July 2022
The Council has received the following Grace, which has been initiated under Special Ordinance A (ii) 5 by 84 members of the Regent House:
The University of Cambridge has a strong, stated commitment to addressing the climate crisis and to keeping global heating below a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase from pre‐industrial levels.
The University currently maintains research funding partnerships with major fossil fuel companies, including Shell and BP (https://www.cam.ac.uk/about‐research/energy‐sector‐partnerships).
In the last two years, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have both stated that there can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure development or exploration if the world is to avoid breaching the critical 1.5 degree boundary and triggering runaway climate breakdown.
As well as donating to the University of Cambridge, fossil fuel companies continue to pay membership fees, in some cases of more than $10m per year, to industry lobby groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, which promote fossil fuel expansion and lobby against climate legislation.
The undersigned members of the Regent House propose the following Grace for submission to the Regent House under Special Ordinance A (ii) 5:
The Regent House asks the Council to agree that the University of Cambridge will not accept research funding or allow sponsorship or other collaborations with companies if they meet one or more of the following criteria:
• They are constructing, or facilitating the construction of, new fossil fuel infrastructure.
• They are engaged in exploring, or facilitating the exploration of, new fossil fuel reserves.
• They retain memberships with trade associations engaged in political lobbying against science‐based
climate legislation.
The Council should also instruct the University’s Development and Alumni Relations department, CUDAR, to conduct fundraising and development activities in order to replace funding which has traditionally been derived from companies which meet these criteria.
A list of the signatories is set out in Annex A.
The Council will consider the Grace at its meeting on 17 October 2022.