Congress motions

Motion

Motion title

The climate emergency: zero carbon workplaces by 2030

Session

2018-2019

Meeting link

Annual Congress

Meeting date

25 May 2019

Status

Passed

Motion

46

Motion text

Congress notes:
1. the IPCC report (Oct 2018) on anthropogenic global climate change outlines the significantly intensified harm likely to result from a 2°C vs 1. 5°C rise; but acknowledges the possibility of avoiding this
2. a growing international movement of school students’ strikes demanding urgent action on climate change, including walkouts on 15 February and 15 March by tens of thousands of school, college and university students
3. student/staff campaigns have helped push over 70 UK universities to pledge to divest from fossil fuels
4. UK universities and colleges have reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but most no longer comply with new scientific understanding
5. some UK university managements, such as Bristol, are rising to this challenge, setting clear targets for carbon neutrality by 2030; elsewhere, such as the University of Warwick, UCU branches are supporting student leadership.

Congress believes
a. the depletion of the planet’s resources by neoliberal powers is unsustainable. These are the same powers implementing marketisation of education.
b. the UK government is failing to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement
c. unions should have a much more integral role in ensuring that climate change policies are advancing.

Congress resolves to
i. publicise the climate strikes to members and urge them to set up solidarity actions for future strikes
ii. issue a public statement on the climate emergency and commit to researching and developing a plan to achieve ‘scope 3’ carbon neutrality by 2030 in all the institutions where members work
iii. encourage all UCU branches to recognise a state of climate emergency and develop a campaign, in collaboration with others including education unions, for all educational institutional commitments to ‘scope 3’ carbon neutrality by 2030
iv. produce campaign and resources to raise eco consciousness.

Proposing body

Composite (University of Warwick, Lambeth College)

Amended

No

Allocated to

Recruitment, organising and campaigning committee (ROCC)

Notes