Climate Emergency petition handed over to university

Tuesday 10-12-2019 - 17:08
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A students' union-backed petition calling on Lancaster University to declare and respond to the Climate Emergency was handed over to university senior managers this week.

Launched by Lancaster University Climate Emergency (LUCE) - a coalition of students and staff who want to see urgent action to avoid climate and ecological breakdown - the petition attracted more than 2,100 signatures from staff and students.

On Monday, a delegation from LUCE handed the petition to Interim Vice-Chancellor Professor Steve Bradley, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Simon Guy and Director of Facilities Andrew Burgess, and presented the case for Lancaster to aim to become carbon neutral by 2030.

The LUCE delegation comprised undergraduate student Victoria Hatch, students' union Development Manager (Environmental Sustainability) Darren Axe, and Professor Rebecca Willis and Teaching Fellow Emily Heath from Lancaster Environment Centre.

Emily said: "We had a constructive meeting with senior management, and discussed next steps towards setting meaningful targets and developing plans for reaching those targets. There was a lot of common ground as we all agreed that the University needs to do much more to reduce its carbon emissions, and that this will require improved sustainability governance, more resources, institutional policy changes, engagement with all departments, and individual behaviour changes. We suggested some 'quick wins' and we will continue to push for these to be implemented soon."

At October's students' union Annual General Meeting, students voted overwhelmingly in favour of the students' union taking a raft of measures including declaring a climate emergency, taking steps to prioritise reduction of carbon emissions in its own work with the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030, and lobbying the university to commit to the same target.

Find out more about Lancaster University Climate Emergency

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