Two years after announcing it would cut financial ties with certain sectors of the fossil fuel industry, the university in an Oct. 3 letter to faculty said it would close the door on research funded by these companies. reopened.
Raquel Rodriguez ’28, a member of Sunrise Princeton, said at an Oct. 4 rally protesting the decision, “Princeton is moving toward sustainability while research is being funded by the culprits[of the climate crisis].” It is not right to promote such efforts.”
In 2022, the university announced it would end its relationships with 90 fossil fuel companies (meaning “to refrain as much as possible from all relationships, including those with a financial component”). The companies, including ExxonMobil, all met a list of criteria, including climate misinformation and involvement in highly polluting sectors of the industry.
The university also committed to eliminating all endowment holdings in publicly traded fossil fuel companies and established a fund to support energy research affected by dissociation. This move was hailed as “historic” at the time and came after nearly 10 years of student protests.
But the university wrote in an October statement that the dissociation had a “negative and unfair impact on academics engaged in research programs addressing pressing environmental issues.” Academics claimed they had lost funding and collaborative partnerships for “research to combat the harms of climate change.”
As a result, the university now allows researchers to accept funding from companies that meet the dissociation criteria, with the condition that the researchers use the funding “with the purpose of generating environmental benefits.” I will do it.
Although the Board of Trustees made a 2022 decision to cut ties with some fossil fuel companies, university spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said in a statement to the Daily Princetonian that the recent rollback It said it was done by the university authorities. Implementing the Board’s fossil fuel separation decisions. ”
Several students, including Sunrise officials, said the move undermined their trust in the university.
“Without dissociation, Princeton will continue to engage in an exploitative and racialized capitalist system that contributes to the climate crisis,” wrote Connie Gong ’25, vice president of the Princeton Conservation Society. There is. “This undermines my (already limited) confidence in the ability of university administrators to act in response to student demands for change.”
The Sunrise rally was planned weeks in advance, initially to showcase Sunrise’s “Get the Job Done” campaign and pressure universities to divest the rest of their endowments from fossil fuels and take other climate-friendly steps. It was intended to be used. But following the announcement, it became a call for universities to “get to work”. Approximately 60 students participated in the rally.
“Princeton University has dismantled dissociation, and we demand that the university put the pieces back together,” said Alex Norbrook ’26 at the rally. “The university has taken over a decade of hard work by students, faculty, and staff and crushed it all.”
Norbrook is an opinion columnist for The Prince.
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Mira Easwaran ’26, co-coordinator of the rally, points out that climate is a deeply personal issue for many students, saying, “Just one week after Hurricane Helen, the university said, ‘The fossils that caused that climate… We decided, ‘We’re going to work on fuel.’ disaster. We’re going to bring them back into our communities. ”
Eashwaran is a staff features writer for “Prince.”
Some questioned whether fossil fuel funding would affect research results.
“There is no evidence that funding from fossil fuel companies has had any impact on the direction of research,” said Cameron Farid ’26, president of the Princeton University Energy Institute, citing his internship at the Andlinger Environmental Center last summer. ” he said.
James Daniels ’26, in an article for the Princeton Tory, criticized the 2022 dissolution decision as “invalid” and detrimental to the foundation’s health, welcomed the reversal but criticized the abrupt move. .
“The sudden reversal demonstrates a lack of foresight on the part of universities and continued climate change hysteria that paralyzes innovation to existing technologies,” Daniels wrote in The Prince.
Daniels also took issue with the university’s current standards, which “deliberately exclude projects that acknowledge the continued short-term importance of fossil fuels.”
In September, prior to the university’s announcement of its policy, Sunrise published a report claiming that Princeton “invests in, profits from, and delivers on research that serves the interests of fossil fuel companies.”
This includes criticism of the fossil fuel funding that universities receive for climate research, which is said to allow companies to promote their image and protect their business models. . One of the main focuses has been BP-funded carbon reduction initiatives, which Sunrise describes as BP’s efforts to “promote natural gas and strengthen its credibility as a recognized climate leader, and at the highest level.” It was used to “advance communication campaigns to influence policy.”
The report also criticized the university’s stake in oil and gas company Petrotiger, which the university reported has earned nearly $140 million in investment income and direct funding, or cash transactions, over the past decade. . Princeton University’s current ownership of PetroTiger is unknown, but Vice President for Finance Jim Matteo said at a Sept. 30 Princeton University Community Council (CPUC) meeting that the university’s investment in PetroTiger dates back to the 1980s. I confirmed that it had started.
“We believe that research has a more significant positive impact than any choice a university makes regarding investment or resource management,” Morrill said in a letter to the Prince. She said that recent changes in dissociation are consistent with the university’s guidelines on divestment and dissociation, and that they “offer at least the possibility of a constructive impact” and “are consistent with the fundamental character of the university as an academic institution.” He said he was encouraging a “uniform” response.
The guidelines also encourage universities to respond in a way that “deserves widespread support through the university.”
After the rally, Sunrise co-coordinator Liz Kuntz ’27 told Prince, “Now more than ever, we need to reaffirm the importance of our work on the Princeton campus, which demands that the university listen to the voices of its students.” “It has become important,” he said.
“We’re going to continue to raise awareness and build a movement so that Princeton University takes us seriously and actually prioritizes the future of our students. Because right now, on behalf of Princeton, Because they don’t feel like they’re there,” said Sunrise co-coordinator Anna Bretta ’27.
Michelle Miao is a Prince news contributor from Oxford, Ohio.
Miriam Waldfogel is deputy news editor and investigative editor at The Prince. A native of Stockton, California, she often covers campus activities and university responsibilities.
Please send corrections to corrections(at)dailyprincetonian.com.
