September 15, 2020

 

To the Chancellor, Office of Sustainability, Faculty Senate, and Student Government Association: 

 

We write to you, who have advocated for climate action planning at Appalachian State, to explain why we can no longer participate in or endorse Appalachian State’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) unless significant changes are made to the plan and the process.

 

Although this should be unnecessary, we must begin from the scientific consensus. We are in a climate emergency. In 2018, the IPCC asserted that preventing catastrophic warming requires “rapid and far-reaching transitions” in all sectors, and that this decade will decide our climate future. A year ago, 11,000 scientists from over 150 countries signed an article in BioScience warning about the climate emergency. And last November, leading Earth systems scientists concluded that we are fast approaching a cascade of tipping points that will cause abrupt and irreversible climate disruption. The question we face is astonishingly simple: do we have the political will to chart a path toward a safe and just climate future, or will we continue careening toward “hothouse Earth”?

 

Since these reports, more than 1700 governments representing 800 million people, universities across the U.K., and other institutions of higher education have declared a climate emergency and begun mobilizing for net zero emissions as soon as possible. They are embracing their responsibilities in light of the scientific consensus. And thank goodness! The speed and extent of systemic transformation necessary to avoid catastrophic warming means that it’s an all hands on deck situation. Appalachian State University is not yet “on deck.” 

 

Appalachian’s leadership has failed to support the kind of emergency mobilization that an understanding of the evidence calls for. Appalachian’s approach also fails to model the sustainability leadership that our institution’s mission, history and reputation demand. We therefore can no longer support the climate action planning process in any way until the following changes are made by the university administration:

1. declare a climate emergency,

2. set a climate neutrality deadline of 2025 and immediately stop planning for later dates,

3. commit to principles of justice,

4. commit to purchasing 100% renewable energy within one year of initiating the NTE contract, and

5. establish a more transparent and participatory process. 

 

Attached we provide a more detailed assessment of some of the CAP’s shortcomings. While ASU continues to act as if we are not on the brink of planetary crisis, ClimAct will not. We hope that the Office of Sustainability is also ready to demonstrate respect for planetary boundaries and the principles of justice, broad participation, and effective leadership, by standing with us and publicly calling upon the administration to take these actions as soon as possible.

 

With strength and hope,

The Climate Action Collaborative (ClimACT)

 

A Brief Analysis of the CAP’s Principal Shortcomings

 

When we first learned that Appalachian State’s Office of Sustainability (OoS) would be developing a new Climate Action Plan (CAP), we were hopeful and excited. Now, after nearly a year of difficult attempts at collaboration between the Appalachian Climate Action Collaborative (ClimAct) and the OoS, we are left seriously disappointed. The CAP had the potential to be a truly significant contribution to climate justice at the university, in Boone, and across North Carolina. ASU had the opportunity to position itself as a global leader in sustainability and achieve the goals that we aim for in our mission and strategic plan. That type of visionary leadership is needed now more than ever, as the nation struggles to address a pandemic, systemic racism, climate change, and severe financial and reputational challenges to higher education. Unfortunately, it is clear that the Climate Action Plan currently under development will not provide that leadership, that it will not uphold the mission and strategic plan of the university, and that it directly contradicts ClimAct’s core values as an organization.

 

ClimAct envisioned a CAP that would usher in a just transition. A university that operated on values of justice in order to reach the goal of sustainability. A university built for people, by people, without cutting corners, without putting profit over values, and without sacrificing the lives and health of some for the success of a few. A public university in the fullest sense of the term. Unfortunately, the climate action planning process and the draft plan have treated justice as an afterthought. Despite our urging–and despite the policy promoted in the unanimously-passed SGA bill on the matter–members of historically excluded frontline communities have not been invited to participate in the process and their needs have not been centered in the analysis of climate action options. Where justice has entered the conversation, it has consistently been posed as a second level of screening rather than a top priority, and in terms of “how do we minimize injustice” rather than "how do we avoid injustice entirely" or, most appropriately, "how do we use climate change mitigation as an opportunity to enhance the inclusion and empowerment of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities, among other excluded groups."

 

ClimAct envisioned a CAP that would model true participation and collaboration, but our experiences have led us to believe that this is perhaps impossible without a true commitment from administration. We showed up to planning meetings (when they were communicated and accessible), joined OoS committees (including committees that were never convened), organized our own forums, attended the OoS forum, and did our best to give our ideas and include the wider community in the process. Our commitment and effort was met with an unwillingness to listen, the continual undermining of non-expert knowledge during meetings, the withholding of valuable data, seemingly strategic exclusion of those who wanted to be heard, a lack of resources and support for targeted outreach towards the broader public as stakeholders, and a process stifled by an an administration that seems to care more about enrollment growth and revenue gains than our university's mission, values, and planetary boundaries. We recognize that broad participation and engagement is time-consuming, challenging, and costly; however, we know that this expectation is entirely feasible with dedicated staffing, university-wide commitment, and proper funding. 

 

ClimACT envisioned a CAP that set evidence-based goals for achieving climate neutrality and aligned with the broad consensus that systemic change is necessary in order to achieve those goals. Appalachian’s insistence on continuing to plan for climate neutrality by 2050 (the least ambitious legally permissible deadline) directly rejects the science-based deadlines for capping emissions set by the 2018 IPCC Special Report. University compartmentalization restricts the Office of Sustainability’s sphere of influence to increasing efficiency and asking students to change their behaviors. Given the detailed scientific analysis confirming widespread human and ecological damage long before 2050, focusing on incremental change is irresponsible. We would argue, in fact, that Appalachian State’s historical inaction and current plans for incremental action constitute a criminally irresponsible misuse of public money in violation of the public trust.  

 

We expect more from ASU. We expect a university that is actually committed to walking the talk of “a healthy, just, and sustainable society,” that genuinely seeks to operate within our planetary boundaries, and that is no longer willing to allow a small group of decision-makers to marginalize, exclude, and disregard the perspectives of communities of color, low-income communities, and others in our state who will bear the brunt of your actions and inactions.

 

Below we explain some of our critiques of the draft CAP in more detail. ASU can do better by:

  

1. Clearly articulating the broader purpose of and principles for the plan, including (1) emphasizing Appalachian’s commitment to a just transformation, to becoming an institution that has a net positive contribution to a just and livable climate (as opposed to a narrow emphasis on campus decarbonization), (2) principles for prioritizing greenhouse gas reductions and evaluating both justice and economic costs and benefits, (3) a detailed articulation of what leadership means, and (4) a scope of analysis that extends beyond technical and behavioral interventions to consider the full range of operational assumptions and norms (e.g. operating hours, town-university relations, habitual externalization of environmental costs, decision-making structures, university finances, etc.).

 

2. Framing the challenge appropriately: We believe it is important to properly frame the problem that we are confronting. Framing the climate crisis in terms of “Carbon 101” risks aligning with the misinformed and misinforming discourse that vilifies carbon (e.g., “the age of carbon is over” and “the war on carbon”). The heading “Carbon 101” fails to actually name the problem, and it therefore allows us to plan for “solutions” that fail to address the full suite of ecological injustices of which climate change is one symptom. Ideally, Appalachian would call attention to the ultimate/root causes of the climate crisis, including colonialism, extractivism, a growth mentality, neoliberalism, the externalization of socioecological and justice issues, white supremacy and systemic racism, patriarchy, capital-centrism, anthropocentrism, etc. This introductory section could instead be titled “Failures of Modernity 101” or “Deprioritizing Ecological Support Systems 101.” At a minimum, the heading should accurately identify the problem (e.g., “Human-Caused Climate Emergency 101”).

 

3. Analyzing and learning from our own historical/our institutional shortcomings: Appalachian State University has been a leader in sustainability in many ways, including through our flagship departments of Sustainable Technology and Sustainable Development, through the foregrounding of justice and sustainability in our strategic plan, and through our early commitments to climate action. Sustainability has, in many ways, become a transversal value across the university, thanks in large part to the work of the Office of Sustainability. We all want Appalachian to continue to lead in sustainability, but leadership today requires confronting even more complex challenges with even more ambitious responses. 

 

The world is no longer discussing the need for greenhouse gas mitigation; we are discussing the need for a just climate transformation. For Appalachian to take successful actions in this space, we need to exemplify the frank self-assessment and organizational learning that is at the core of true leadership. This means that we need to be open and honest about the institutional dynamics that have impeded progress in the past and that have allowed us to carry on despite repeatedly failing to reach our goals. That these dynamics have not been adequately analyzed is rooted in the university’s relegation of this crisis to the limited scope of the OoS, abdicating the real commitment and responsibility required by the institution as a whole.

Among the details that might be included in this frank self-analysis, we would include: 

1. a faithful representation of actual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and energy use reductions, in absolute terms and using the most appropriate conversion factors; 

2. a faithful representation of our business-as-usual trajectory toward climate neutrality given historical GHG reduction trends, university growth projections, and reasonable expectations of diminishing returns over time; 

3. an analysis of the shortcomings of past plans and their implementation, ranging from state-level constraints on purchasing, investments, and funding for energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction, to the lack of internal accountability mechanisms.

 

4. Analyzing gaps in this plan and detailing foreseeable risks to implementation, including but not limited to (a) insufficient funding for climate action planning, which has delayed a complete analysis of the full suite of climate mitigation recommendations, their economic feasibility, and their justice impacts, (b) barriers due to state-level constraints and “locked-in” infrastructural emissions, and (c) the fact that Appalachian (like nearly all institutions) does not account for all of our emissions. If the 2020 Climate Action Plan does not include a very explicit discussion of the emissions that we do not currently count, we worry that it will mislead decision-makers about the scope and speed of change needed.

  

5. Making clear and detailed recommendations for establishing responsibility, accountability, and enforcement. Goal-setting is the easiest part of leadership. It is much harder to equip and empower all members of our community to actually contribute to that leadership, and harder still to hold ourselves to real consequences when we fail to meet our established goals. And yet this kind of accountability–with clear and predictable incentives and disincentives, and with comprehensive support for action–is precisely what is needed if we truly believe that avoiding or minimizing a climate crisis is an ethical and institutional priority. Current limitations imposed upon the OoS make this kind of leadership impossible, and we will only be able to confront these challenges with the commitment and support of the highest levels of university administration.

 

Our Stance. We believe that those who have participated in the CAP have done so with the best of intentions, and we appreciate their hard work. We hope that they will take the critiques we offer here as a basis for strengthening the existing CAP. However, ClimAct cannot in good conscience continue to participate in a climate action planning process that is so limited by improper funding and a lack of power, ignores the scientific consensus, deprioritizes justice, fails to achieve broad participation, and accepts it as inevitable that Appalachian will continue to exceed our planetary boundaries for decades to come.

 

The problems we highlight have deep roots and cannot be fixed simply by refining the existing climate action plan. These problems represent a failure of university leadership–it is a failure to define the problem appropriately, a failure to establish the necessary goals, directions, responsibilities, and institutional mechanisms for planning and action, and, most troubling, a failure to respect students, faculty, and other members of the university community and to take seriously their input as participants in the shared governance of this institution. As a result of this leadership failure, all existing official channels for climate action are insufficient for the transformations deemed necessary by the world’s top scientists. Our only choice–as an organization that takes the scientific consensus seriously, that is committed to a truly just and sustainable future, and that believes that App can and should be a leader in climate justice–is to engage in other forms of pressure until we can recreate our university as one that is genuinely committed to and capable of leadership for a just climate transition.