In the wake of a large grassroots effort from students, President Mark Emmert of the University of Washington has officially signed on to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. Students from the Campus Climate Challenge Coalition at UW, which includes WashPIRG, SEED and the Sierra Student Coalition, organized a rapid-response petitioning event that gathered and delivers hundreds of student signatures to President Emmert.
The Climate Commitment is an agreement between presidents of colleges and universities across the nation to eliminate carbon emissions from their campuses. The actual commitment requires:
- Setting up a mechanism (committee, task force, office, etc.) within 2 months to guide the process.
- Completing an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions within 1 year, starting July 2007.
- Creating
and implementing a climate neutral plan (that includes a target date
and interim milestones for achieving campus climate neutrality) within
2 years.
- Taking 2 of 6 immediate steps specified in the
commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while the more
comprehensive plan is being developed.
- Integrating sustainability into the curriculum and making it part of the educational experience.
- Making the action plan, inventory and periodic progress reports publicly available.
Additionally, President Emmert is part of the Leadership Circle, so his responsibilities also include leading the initiative and recruiting colleagues. For more information, visit www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org.
The Campus Climate Challenge Coalition expects to have a seat at the table to plan and execute these new responsibilities.
