How Wits should handle the fossil fuel divestment dilemma

We are heading into a potentially catastrophic El Niño weather cycle, Gauteng’s air quality currently meets World Health Organization levels for a public health crisis, and South Africa continues to face massive unemployment and almost no economic growth. The decades-long predictions and explanations by climate scientists have proved impressively accurate: we know that the only way to avoid more frequent and more disruptive extreme weather events is to radically reduce the emissions caused by burning fossil fuels. 

South Africa is a particularly vulnerable country, with temperatures increasing at almost double the average global rate. At the same time, we have a declining industrial sector, an economy historically based in mining, and electricity produced primarily from coal, making us one of the world’s most coal-intensive economies, and the worst emitter of greenhouse gases in Africa. In this context, what should the role of a university like the University of the Witwatersrand be?

A timely debate

In February this year Fossil Free South Africa published a report documenting the extent of funding provided to South African universities by the fossil fuel industry. They suggest that this has stopped the universities from championing climate action in South Africa, and helped to legitimise fossil fuel industries, citing examples from abroad of the “capture” of leading universities.  

Wits Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate Change, Sustainability and Inequality, Professor Imraan Valodia, responded to this in the University World News as well as Daily Maverick. He argues that engagement is not necessarily endorsement, and that engagement with the fossil fuel industry is essential to navigating a just transition in South Africa. Valodia says that Fossil Free SA fails to take sufficiently seriously the specific role of universities in the Global South, and the institutional, developmental and historical complexities they face. He argues that this role cannot be reduced to a strategy of divestment; that we cannot retreat from the economy we have inherited – with industry heavily dependent on fossil fuels – but must engage to transform it.

This is a timely debate. What is fossil fuel disinvestment? And what is the role of South African universities in the climate emergency? In particular, as Wits faculty ourselves, we want to consider how a university like Wits – which aims to be a leading research university on the continent and even globally – can show transformative leadership in these crises. Valodia argues that our influence lies less in our investment portfolio than in the knowledge we generate, the graduates we educate, the technologies we develop and the public debates we shape. We agree. For a university like Wits, how our pensions are managed is only one small part of how we can invest in a just energy transition. Research partnerships, knowledge and technology generation, and our own carbon footprint are also crucial. 

Research partnerships

Fossil Free SA points out that taking funding from fossil fuel companies is investing in them, enabling them to launder their reputations through partnerships with universities, and to present themselves as socially responsible. Valodia contends that disengagement is not an option while South Africa faces the difficult challenges of decarbonising while addressing unemployment and inequality in the actual economy we have. 

Wits urgently needs partnerships for funding research. And, given fossil fuel companies’ size and historical dominance in our economy, the university may struggle without them. A best-case scenario would be a collaboration in which fossil fuel companies have incentives to change and be part of the future, driving renewable growth. If they can be worked with to help them do this, such engagement could be an important contribution to a just transition. But we know there are bad actors. And the dangers of greenwashing are real – Valodia agrees that this is a potential problem. So how should Wits handle this?

We suggest that the university needs to be absolutely transparent about the funding it receives and the aims of research projects. It also needs to be explicit and intentional about how it engages with its funders, always looking for ways that can lead to real transformation. We cannot respond to Fossil Free SA unless we challenge our academics to demonstrate that their industry partnerships drive creative and groundbreaking research that explores transformative pathways both in terms of technology, and also in terms of policy, governance, behaviours and views that enable change. 

It is not enough to point out the possibility that engagement can be part of transformation: we need to be actively ensuring that it is and that it is seen to be. We cannot expect the public to simply take our word that our research engagements are transformative. We need to engage with the challenges of how to implement, monitor, govern and communicate this. 

The medical sciences have been transformed by decades of work (in relation to tobacco funding) to meet standards of disclosure; other disciplines lag behind. All Wits researchers should include up-front disclosure about how research is funded. And in particular, every Wits academic who publishes research or public engagement on any aspect of the energy transition must make their funding explicit. 

We should not be driven by the fear that industry partners will take their funds elsewhere. We should demonstrate to those industry partners that they need us to genuinely transform and have a role in the future. The challenge of driving a research agenda through raising external funds can be best pursued if we are transparent and honest about our goals and expect the same transparency from all the industry partners, philanthropists and governments who created the unjust, unsustainable situation we are living in today, but also need to be part of the solution.

Research leadership

Valodia argues that disinvestment is not a strategy for transforming our economy. This raises the question: what are strategies for transforming our economy?

Fossil industries employ people in our country, but an energy transition is coming, whether it happens in a planned or an unplanned way. Climate change will destroy many jobs and livelihoods – just look at the economic loss the El Niño is projected to cause. Meanwhile, the potential for jobs created by renewable energy is not just directly those people working on solar and wind farms. Rather, reliable, stable, cheap, clean energy is itself a major basis for economic growth, opening up the enormous entrepreneurial energy of South Africans, already manifest in our informal economy but constantly frustrated by our unreliable electricity. 

What role can Wits play in this? Academics at Wits work across renewable energy, climate adaptation, climate mitigation, biodiversity, energy justice, green industrialisation, inequality and climate change, as well as so-called clean coal technologies and carbon capture and storage. This choice of activities is based on individuals pursuing their research interests and funding opportunities – a crucial part of a university. But leadership commensurate with the depth and complexity of the crises we face requires more than this from the university as a whole. University management and cross-faculty, high-level strategic planning should target areas in which Wits can provide transformative leadership in developing knowledge and technology that will transform the economy and energy generation for the city, region and country. And we should work with partners to intentionally create posts and opportunities to recruit the talent we need to do this. 

Current high-profile Wits research initiatives include ENERGISE: a multi-institutional centre of excellence cutting across renewable energy, community electrification and sustainable entrepreneurship, funded by the German government. Wits will also be building a green hydrogen plant and creating a research chair in green hydrogen, funded by Air Liquide. This is a beginning. Research in transformative renewable energy generation and use is exploding worldwide – from the use of batteries in stabilising grids, to rocks as thermal batteries in industry, geothermal generation, and much more. Wits must not be only responsive: we should lead in bringing research from the Global South to this transformation. 

Our own carbon footprint

A university’s investment in fossil fuels is not just about our investment portfolio and what research we do. We invest in fossil fuels every time we fill a tank with petrol or diesel, or run a diesel generator to keep the lights on. Wits needs to lead by transforming its own carbon footprint. It needs to model for other institutions in the city and region how to use energy audits, renewables and batteries to make our own institution carbon-neutral and to facilitate behaviour change among staff. A simple example: Wits campuses still have cars baking in the sun, when there are companies – working in Johannesburg right now – willing and able to cover every outdoor parking lot with solar panels at no net cost to the university. It is hard to see how the country can make this transformation if we cannot; showing how to do this is an essential part of transformative leadership.

Three years ago the Wits Senate passed a climate commitment which included the commitment for Wits to “play a pivotal role in a just and equitable transition to a net zero-carbon economy for the city, region, country, continent and the world, by 2050. At the centre of this commitment will be ongoing analyses of our own carbon footprint, with a view to transforming the university into a living laboratory for just practices of sustainability.” Wits senate endorsed this vision of what a university is. Now is the time to pursue this vision through total transparency, true innovation and fearless strategic engagement, at all levels of the university. DM