A few days ago, the @guardian published an article criticising the launch of @CambridgeZero, @Cambridge_Uni’s ‘bold response to the world’s greatest challenge’, as a PR stunt and an attempt to ‘greenwash’ its other ties with the fossil fuel industry and provide a platform for...

fossil fuel companies to partner with an academically respected institution to greenwash their own image.

Despite having multiple opportunities to refute the claims made in The Guardian before the article’s release, various members of Cambridge Zero have taken to...

social media to attack the students and journalists involved in the investigation; making fanciful claims equating us with climate change deniers, without actually addressing any of the criticisms made.

This is clearly an exercise in damage control, an attempt to smear the...

evidenced claims made as an irrational and misplaced attack in order to avoid further criticisms of Cambridge Zero. To respond to genuine concerns raised by students with such vitriol and condescension shows a University which cares more for its reputation than the product...

of its actions. We refuse to sit by and blindly celebrate an initiative made by a university which remains so complicit in climate breakdown.

Here are some points we’d like to add:

1. @CambridgeZero cannot be taken seriously whilst it promotes cooperation with fossil fuel companies. Here it also provides these companies with a platform to greenwash.

They want us to overlook the fact that last year the world’s top oil companies invested just 1% of their total profits into the research and development of renewables, and sticking their name on a purportedly green initiative like Cambridge Zero gives them...

an effective means of doing this. Thus the University becomes complicit in allowing fossil fuel companies to divert attention away from their continued destruction of our planet.

2. Our criticisms are directed at the University’s construction of a platform to mislead the public into thinking that they are taking sufficient action against climate change, rather than at any individuals.The fact that the University is yet to divest from fossil fuels and...

even houses extractive research groups shows that they are not acting appropriately to address the climate crisis. However, we pointed out that links between key people involved in the project and fossil fuel companies, whose business models depend on continued...

fossil fuel extraction, could also compromise the objectives of Cambridge Zero.

3. We also targeted our criticism at Cambridge Zero’s promotion of ‘climate repair’ and other forms of geoengineering. As Econexus and @biofuelwatch Biofuelwatch argued:

“Geoengineering is a fantasy technology that at best legitimises the ongoing ecocide and genocide perpetuated by fossil fuel companies, and if implemented would have a devastating and unpredictable impacts on ecosystems and human communities around the world.”

Cambridge should be focussing on research which seeks to reduce carbon emissions, rather than giving fossil fuel companies the license to continue extraction. This merely passes on the burden of cleaning up our mess to the next...

generation and to the people who have already been affected by decades of climate injustice and centuries of colonialism.

The University’s response to our criticisms is unsurprising. We are attempting to protect our university’s academic output from a takeover led by corporate interests and funded by oil money. We must not let these groups control the narrative of the fight against climate change.

It is through radical, grassroots movements like our own that we will fight the climate crisis, centering the experience and demands of those in the global south, not the financial and reputational interests of marketised universities and fossil fuel companies.

For all those really interested in the University’s record on climate change, you can read our report here and understand Cambridge Zero for the greenwashed, PR stunt it clearly is. http://zerocarbonsoc.soc.srcf.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Fossil-Fuel-University-Report.pdf