Over the last four years, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Sierra Student Coalition has constantly adapted its campaign to effect change. It all began in fall 2009, when SSC met to create a student movement against burning coal to power our campus.
After a series of galvanizing moments, including former NASA climate scientist James Hansen’s support of our cause at the campus cogeneration plant, Chancellor Holden Thorpe announced that UNC would cease to burn coal on campus by 2020. But our campus’s endowment, currently valued at $2.7 billion, still supports the very industry that the university has vowed to quit sourcing its energy from.
So our campaign adjusted accordingly, and by fall of 2011 we were lobbying the Board of Trustees to recognize our shared stake in divesting from the Filthy Fifteen. These companies jeopardize public health, contribute to climate change, and concentrate their pollutants on low-income communities, and most importantly to the managers of our endowment, prove a losing investment for large stakeholders.
Since we began our divestment campaign, we’ve had both triumphs and troubles. In 2013 77% of UNC’s student voters came out in favor of divestment from coal, and similar support was provided by Student Congress. Last fall, nearly 3 years after the divestment campaign began, the Board of Trustees agreed to target clean energy in future investments. This provided a recognition by university leaders that renewable energy resources have a sound return on investment.
But the BOT’s agreement has still not signaled a willingness to divest from dirty coal companies. UNC is still implicated in these companies’ egregious actions, whether or not it targets clean energy investments.
In February, we met with Joshua Humphreys of the Croatan Institute to discuss the launch of a partnership with his organization and the Responsible Endowment Coalition. In conjunction with members of the fossil fuel divestment group at UNC-Asheville, we created the North Carolina Divestment Coalition, which will help divestment groups in the UNC system coordinate action and increase the collective impact of our campaigns. A few weeks ago, SSC held its spring semester kickoff meeting and led a discussion on UNC’s Climate Action Plan with other leaders in campus sustainability.
Though senior members of our group prepare to graduate in the spring, UNC Chapel Hill’s divestment campaign will not leave campus with them. Younger voices and fresh faces are ready to step up to lead the movement through the next series of challenges and victories.
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Want to help UNC and all universities go coal free? Sign the Sierra Student Coalition's #SeizeTheGrid Campaign petition for 100% clean energy by 2030!
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