Students have called on The Ohio State University to divest from fossil fuels following a USG meeting Wednesday Night. Credit: Gabe Haferman | Lantern File Photo
The Undergraduate Student Government General Assembly passed a resolution Wednesday to encourage the university to divest from the fossil fuel industry and invest towards more sustainable sources of energy.
Resolution 55-R-17, proposed by USG sustainability chair Zoe Matsuzaki, a second-year in public management, leadership and policy, said USG aims to hold the university accountable for its goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
“This resolution is really important,” Matsuzaki said. “As everyone mentioned, we are obviously in a climate crisis, and Ohio State has not done enough, not nearly enough.”
According to the 2020-2021 Ohio State Sustainability Accomplishments brochure from the Sustainability Institute, the university received national recognition for its zero waste efforts, finishing first in diverted landfill in the Big Ten Campus Race to Zero Waste Competition.
The university was also awarded under $680,000 in 2021 from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to replace four diesel-powered buses with four compressed natural gas buses, according to the brochure. With the implementation of the new vehicles, over 60 percent of Campus Area Bus Service buses will have transitioned to support the university’s carbon reduction goals.
According to the resolution, student activism calling for divestment from fossil fuels has occurred since 2014, and it states scientific findings prove climate change is real and worsened by human behavior.
Isabella Guinigundo, a third-year in women’s, gender and sexuality studies and science and environmental communication and a member of Ohio Youth For Climate Justice, said the university should have a stronger plan to achieve its sustainability goals.
“Many large corporations, even fossil fuel companies, have lofty net-zero goals without clear implementation plans or intentions to follow through,” Guinigundo said. “This is a common tactic used by corporations to appear sustainable, while maintaining the systems of the fossil fuel industry. Continuing to invest in such corporations would be a mistake.”
Yousuf Munir, a second-year in sociology and the education lead for Ohio Youth For Climate Justice, said he does not believe the university — including University President Kristina M. Johnson — listens to the voices of students and their environmental goals. He said the campaign has been in place for “over two years.”
“In those two years, this university, Kristina Johnson and the people that continue to allocate funding for the investment into the world’s greatest crisis — the climate crisis — have continued to ignore student voices,” Munir said. “They’ve ignored the past divestment resolution.”
University spokesperson Chris Booker said in an email Johnson and her administration meet with students and organizations continuously throughout the year. He said the university is committed to “combating climate change and aggressively addressing the university’s carbon footprint” to achieve “net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.”
Booker said the university’s key issues page details changes to sustainability and climate change. He said the university “has reduced carbon emissions by 30% since 2015” through improvements in energy efficiency.
In 2017, USG adopted a previous resolution to remove investments from fossil fuel corporations.
According to the new resolution, the university’s Office of Business and Finance responded to the 2017 resolution partly “by stating that divesting in fossil fuels as requested by the student body would ‘reduce the resources available for priorities such as student scholarships and faculty positions.’”
According to the resolution, several other Big Ten universities — including the universities of Michigan and Illinois — have committed to fully or partially divesting from fossil fuels as of 2022.
Munir said he hopes the resolution will allow student voices to be heard and encourage the university to think of its environmental impact.
“This resolution is important because it’s another step towards making this university acknowledge that they are complicit in this crisis and that that can no longer be allowed,” Munir said.
This story was updated at 10:52 a.m. Friday to include more information from the university about reducing carbon emissions.
