U President Michael Young announced Thursday that he will sign the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment during Tuesday’s Earth Day celebration — an action long awaited by some students and faculty.
The commitment, which boasts over 500 signatories, provides institutions with guidelines for reducing carbon emissions and combating global warming.
“I can say, with assurance, this is just the beginning of our commitment to making this campus a model of sustainability,” Young said in a statement.
Craig Forster, director of the U’s Office of Sustainability, agrees.
“We hope the commitment will make campus decision makers more aware of the implications of their actions,” he said of the commitment’s potential.
Some students fear the university’s initial hesitancy to sign the commitment implies a lack of genuine concern.
“Environmental issues are a hot topic right now, so the U is forced to confront climate change, but if we’re really going to make a difference, it won’t be through more big bureaucratic public relations,” said Gardner Seawright, a senior in sociology. “It seems that President Young has procrastinated, and only time will tell if we follow through.”
Other Utah schools, such as Utah State University, Weber State University and Westminster College, all signed the agreement last year.
Forster feels the wait was necessary for the administration to prepare the plan’s implementation, though.
“President Young did not want to make light of this decision,” Forster said. ” He wanted to make sure that we could actually do it before signing.”
Young’s signature will commit the U to a very specific course of action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the Office of Sustainability and student groups, such as Sustainable Environments and Ecological Design or SEED, have given the U a sizable head start.
Participants must first create structures to guide the implementation of the plan, perform a comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and complete at least two of seven specified tasks within two years. The Office of Sustainability meets the requirement for a leadership group and has already begun an emissions inventory. The U’s EdPass program fulfills one requirement. And as the university approaches 15 percent renewable energy through the purchase of carbon offsets, the second is nearing completion.
After two years, the U must draft a Climate Neutrality Action Plan that sets a date for complete offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions. It must also include plans for incorporating issues of sustainability into university curriculum and improving research on environmental issues.
The Office of Sustainability has organized a campus-wide sustainability curriculum development team to support environmentally conscious coursework and plans to facilitate frequent guest lecture forums, much like it did with the 2008 Focus the Nation on Global Warming Solutions for America teach-in.
Environmental research is already well under way at the U. Professor Brian J. McPherson, manager of the Carbon Management Group at the U’s Energy and Geoscience Institute, has been developing methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants through CO2 sequestration. Professors Ronald J. Pugmire and Adel F. Sarofim lead the Utah Clean Coal Program, which aims to retrofit existing coal-fired plants with carbon-capture technology. Professors Kevin Whitty, Wlodzimierz Zmierczak and Edward M. Eyring are currently studying how the gasification of biorefinery residues can produce ethanol.