@amywestervelt<\/a>Wed 1 Mar 2023 12.00 EST (TheGuardian.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Six fossil fuel companies funneled more than $700m in research funding to 27 universities in the US from 2010 to 2020, according to a new study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such funding at universities that conduct climate research can shift not just research agendas, but also policy in the direction of climate solutions the industry prefers, the report\u2019s authors argue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those solutions typically include biofuels, carbon capture, and hydrogen, according to the research<\/a> by the thinktank Data for Progress <\/a>and the nonprofit group Fossil-Free Research<\/a>. Oil majors also invest in public policy and economics research that favors deregulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c$700m is probably an absolute bare minimum,\u201d Grace Adcox, polling analyst for Data for Progress, said. \u201cThere\u2019s so little transparency around these gifts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The top five schools on the list, include some that champion their climate research, like University of California at Berkeley ($154m), Stanford University ($56.6m) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology ($40.5m), as well as those with long-standing fossil fuel ties, like George Mason University ($64m), the largest recipient of funding from the Koch Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These schools have also long been the targets of campus divestment campaigns, with students and faculty urging administrators to pull university funds from fossil fuel companies; Berkeley fully divested in 2020<\/a>, Stanford and MIT\u2019s resistance to the idea has resulted in a student-led lawsuit.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about the new research, several universities described measures they had taken to mitigate concerns, or pointed to more recent reductions in accepting donations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report includes a poll indicating that a majority (67%) of both college-educated and non-college-educated voters agree with the statement: \u201cColleges and universities studying the impacts of climate change and sustainability should refuse donations from fossil fuel companies so they can remain unbiased in their research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study was created from publicly available data, including tax-form 990s from fossil fuel company foundations, annual reports from both universities and oil companies, and press releases or media coverage about big new donations. It\u2019s an imperfect approach, but it is enough to give the public some hint of how much money fossil fuel companies are investing in research that has a real impact on policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese research projects have real-life implications \u2013 for example a lot of the fossil fuel-funded research has re-centered natural gas in the conversation about renewables,\u201d Bella Kumar, lead author of the Data for Progress report, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to the research, Dan Mogulof, assistant vice-chancellor at Berkeley, sent the Guardian a full accounting of the university\u2019s fossil fuel donations, which he said represent less than 1% of its total research funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stanford spokesperson Mara Vandlik said: \u201cIt\u2019s unclear how these numbers were calculated as we do not share this information publicly,\u201d adding that the university has formed a committee to review the question of fossil fuel funding of research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe recognize this is an impassioned topic for members in our community and the university is approaching this matter with the seriousness and rigor it deserves,\u201d Vandlik said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur research reports are the work of MIT faculty, staff and students,\u201d the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) said in a statement. \u201cThe funders, whether they are foundations or MITEI members<\/a>, have no control over the content of the reports \u2013 no approval or rejection, no opportunity to accept or reject any findings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wednesday\u2019s report comes after researchers at Columbia University last year published the first peer-reviewed paper<\/a> to attempt to quantify those implications. Published in the journal Nature, that paper found that research centers accepting funding from the gas industry were far more likely to embrace fossil gas as a climate solution, and to downplay the role renewable energy sources might play in the energy transition, than their non-fossil-funded counterparts. The team undertook that research, which consisted of analysis of 1,706 reports from 26 universities, in part because of the integral role a study from one of Columbia\u2019s own industry-funded centers had played in debates about climate policy. That study, \u201cAmerican Gas to the Rescue?\u201d came out in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was about the benefits of American gas production and LNG to global geopolitical considerations in eastern Europe, and Ukraine specifically,\u201d the report\u2019s lead author Douglas Almond said. \u201cAnd it got a lot of press attention and I saw it being cited by energy advocacy groups and what was startling to me about that is it was referred to as \u2018the Columbia University report,\u2019 and there was no mention of funding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The paper was also cited in various congressional hearings about whether or not to lift the US export ban for oil and gas in 2015 (which the federal government did ultimately do).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some schools are taking far more fossil fuel research funding than others, and some are undoubtedly receiving far more fossil fuel research funding than what\u2019s included in the new research published Wednesday, while others may be taking less now than they were last decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n University of California at Berkeley, for example, is near the top of the list with $108m in fossil fuel research funding from 2010 to 2020, but says it\u2019s now receiving less than $10m a year from fossil fuel companies, which is less than a quarter of a percent of its research funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s worth asking why take fossil fuel money at all if they don\u2019t really need it?\u201d Ilana Cohen, co-founder of Fossil Free Research said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cohen points to Stanford University\u2019s recently announced Doer School of Sustainability as another example. \u201cStanford got a $1bn gift<\/a> for the Doer School from an individual. And yet they\u2019re still very deliberately choosing to maintain relationships with top oil and gas majors. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some researchers argue that partnerships with the oil majors help keep their work relevant to the real world. \u201cThey provide a lot of guidance and they keep you honest,\u201d George Huber, at the University of Wisconsin, told the Guardian.<\/strong><\/em> Huber\u2019s cellulosic biofuels research has received funding from a variety of fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOftentimes you\u2019ll see professors make statements about energy that are not technically correct and work on technology that can\u2019t be implemented. And the people from industry, they understand what the technology needs to have to be implemented at an industrial scale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou want a sponsor with a vested interest that is paying attention to the data and influencing research directions and informing academics of market needs,\u201d Matthew Posewitz, at the Colorado School of Mines, said. Like Huber, Posewitz received funding from ExxonMobil for his lab, which focuses on algae research. \u201cAcademics can sometimes get into things that don\u2019t fulfill any market need. Sponsorships can bridge that information deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dan Kammen, professor of energy at University of California at Berkeley and a former adviser to both the US government and the United Nations on climate, worked on the proposal that resulted in one of the largest fossil fuel gifts ever made to any university, BP\u2019s $500m donation to the Energy<\/a> and Biosciences Institute \u2013 a consortium that includes Berkeley, University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab \u2013 to study biofuels. He sees schools like Posewitz\u2019s that have a longstanding relationship with the fossil fuel industry as fundamentally different from schools like his that prioritize climate research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPlaces like Colorado School of Mines or University of Texas that actively court and work for the fossil fuel industry are a different story,\u201d he said. But he draws a distinction between accepting fossil fuel money for research directly related to fossil fuel extraction and taking oil company donations for climate research. \u201cIt makes no sense to conduct research to expand fossil fuel extraction, but funds from companies committed to make the transition to clean energy should be welcomed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like the Fossil-Free Research campaigners, Kammen said there needs to be immediate improvement to transparency around who\u2019s getting how much funding and from whom. \u201cThere needs to be full disclosure not only when you write a paper, but also around the funding of research centers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have clear examples where research agendas were shifted. Everyone will deny it, but the best way is to have the data open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In documents subpoenaed as part of the House oversight committee investigation into climate disinformation and published in 2022, BP executives were explicit about what university funding buys them. In one email,<\/a> Bob Stout, former vice-president and head of regulatory policy and advocacy for BP, wrote: \u201c<\/em>\u2026 [In] addition to the value in informing our understanding of climate science and policy, these relationships [with Princeton, Harvard, Tufts and Columbia] are key parts of our long-term relationship building and outreach to policy makers and influencers in the US and globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe do not always agree on matters of policy, but we do get valuable intel on the evolving perspectives and priorities of the environmental community and are able to tell the story of what we are doing and why in a more personal and compelling way. In return they are able to give us valuable input on our strategies and messaging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even critics of these funding relationships don\u2019t necessarily think the funding itself should go away, just the strings attached to it. \u201cFossil fuel companies should<\/em> be paying for climate solutions,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cBut they shouldn\u2019t have any direct role in how the production of knowledge relevant to those solutions is coming about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story was updated on 1 March 2023 to change the donations from fossil-fuel companies to the University of California at Berkeley between 2010 to 2020 from $108m to $154m after further information from the university. A further update was made on 2 March 2023 to clarify Dan Kammen\u2019s role related to a BP grant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Funding at 27 universities can shift not just research agendas, but also policy in the direction the industry prefers, report says Amy Westervelt @amywesterveltWed 1 Mar 2023 12.00 EST (TheGuardian.com) Six fossil fuel companies funneled more than $700m in research funding to 27 universities in the US from 2010 to… Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/image-6.png\")
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\u2018There needs to be full disclosure\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n