<
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/sep/05/universities-fossil-fuel-funding-green-energy>
"Fossil fuel companies’ funding of universities’ climate-focused efforts is
delaying the green transition, according to the most extensive peer-reviewed
study to date of the industry’s influence on academia.
For the study, published in the journal
WIREs Climate Change on Thursday, six
researchers pored over thousands of academic articles on industries’ funding of
research from the past two decades. Just a handful of them focused on oil and
gas companies, showing a “worrying lack of attention” to the issue, the
analysis says.
But even that small body of research shows a pattern of industry influence:
“The academic integrity of higher education is at risk,” they write.
During the past two decades, non-profits, campus organizers and a small group
of scholars have sounded the alarm about oil companies’ influence in academia,
drawing parallels to tobacco, pharmaceuticals and food producers who have also
funded scholarship.
In the new study, researchers found that out of roughly 14,000 peer-reviewed
articles about conflicts of interest, bias and research funding across all
industries from 2003 to 2023, only seven mentioned fossil fuels. When the
authors broadened their search to look at book chapters, they found only seven
more.
But even by combing through the small body of existing scholarship, the authors
identified hundreds of instances in the US, UK, Canada and Australia where oil
and gas interests had poured funding into climate and energy research while
sitting on advisory or governing boards, endowing academic posts, sponsoring
scholarships, advising curricula or otherwise influencing universities.
“We find that universities are an established yet under-researched vehicle of
climate obstruction by the fossil fuel industry,” the authors write.
The analysis found that oil companies have long influenced universities to
focus on climate efforts that would enshrine a future for fossil fuels, despite
experts’ repeated warnings that the world must stop burning coal, oil and gas
to avert the worst climate impacts."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
