Student Researchers Expose Fossil Fuel Ties at US Universities

Students at universities and colleges across the U.S. have long demanded that their schools cut ties with the fossil fuel industry as planetary heating has increasingly been linked to extreme weather and pollution-causing emissions have continued.

New findings released by student researchers with the Campus Climate Network on Wednesday, said the organization, "add more detail and evidence to what these students have already been campaigning for—fossil fuel funding has no place in universities' climate research."

The students spoke at a virtual press conference titled "Big Oil's Stain on Our Universities," presenting research compiled in six reports regarding fossil fuel industry ties at Columbia University, Princeton University, Cornell University, American University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and University of California San Diego.

The six institutions have collectively received more than $108 million in direct funding to the fossil fuel industry, published more than 1,500 academic articles and papers funded by oil giants, and count 10 people affiliated with the industry among the members of their university governance boards, according to the research—which follows the first-ever literature review of investigations into Big Oil's links to higher education, published in the peer-reviewed journal WIREs Climate Change earlier this month.

Columbia and Princeton were by far the biggest recipients of fossil fuel money, accepting more than $43 million each from companies and their foundations.

Sunrise Columbia, the Sunrise Movement's chapter at the university, published a report presented at Wednesday's press conference, detailing how Hess Corporation—an oil and gas company acquired by Chevron—was the largest fossil fuel donor to the prestigious university. The company contributed more than $15 million to Columbia from 2005-24.

Koch Family Foundations, "which have spent hundreds of millions to finance groups promoting climate denial," and liquefied natural gas (LNG) firm Cheniere Energy were also major contributors.

Fossil fuel money at Columbia has gone toward funding the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), the School of International and Public Affairs, and the university's Climate School—which "powers innovative research in the science, consequences, and human dimensions of climate change."

"CGEP, the Climate School, and Columbia repeatedly claim to produce unbiased, reputable research to advance climate solutions. Many of our findings directly contradict these missions."

The Climate School has received $741,967 from fossil fuel giants since it was established in 2020.

"CGEP, the Climate School, and Columbia repeatedly claim to produce unbiased, reputable research to advance climate solutions," reads the report. "Many of our findings directly contradict these missions—from Columbia being named explicitly by a BP [vice president] as essential for their outreach and influence to being specifically mentioned as a producer of biased research, Columbia has fallen short," said Sunrise Columbia.

At Princeton, student researchers wrote that the university "legitimizes and financially supports the fossil fuel industry," continuing to invest "approximately $700 million in privately held fossil fuel companies without justification," even after divesting its endowment of fossil fuel holdings worth $1 billion.

The report notes that the school's New Jersey campus "has not been spared" from extreme weather that's growing more frequent as the planet gets hotter and scientists warn that limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C is getting less likely.

"Last summer, our campus was shrouded by smoke from incinerated Quebecois pine trees, smoke that turned the sky a burning orange. Outdoor workers on and off campus were hit hardest," wrote the students. "Floods nearby destroyed transport infrastructure and made it harder for our community members to come to campus to work or to learn. Scorching temperatures at the start of each fall semester make it difficult to think."

But while students, faculty, and staff have suffered the effects of fossil fuel extraction, major fossil fuel companies including BP, Exxon, Shell, and TotalEnergies have spent more than $43 million on research at Princeton, funding papers containing "explicit applications for continued or expanded fossil fuel use."

At the virtual press conference on Wednesday, Campus Climate Network research manager Maddie Young said the articles detailed in the six reports focus primarily on methods for fossil fuel extraction, methods and "benefits" of "false solutions" like carbon capture, and extending and upholding "the social license of the fossil fuel industry to operate."

"So these might be articles that are connected to healthcare or health research and promote the image of corporate social responsibility connected to the fossil fuel industry," said Young, "and allow them to continue to leverage these relationships to universities and to greenwash their own image and present themselves as socially responsible."

The student researchers recommended that Princeton prohibit all research funding from the industry and complete divestment from all oil, gas, and coal companies, as well as cut ties with Petrotiger, a fossil fuel company that Princeton "appears to own," having earned nearly $140 million in the last 10 years in investment income and direct contributions.

"These recommendations are all within Princeton's power to achieve," said the student researchers. "The university must act upon these items with the urgency the climate crisis demands."

Young, who is also a student organizer at American University, said the student-authored reports are "only the beginning—we have a strong, national student movement that will continue to expose and cut the ties with Big Oil."

“It's time for our universities to become real climate leaders," said Young, "and cut ties with the fossil fuel industry once and for all."