Labour Group Member Motion

This Council notes that:

·         The progress of the Glasgow Climate Pact is real without being enough to meet the climate emergency.

·         The Pact puts fossil fuel producers on notice and, despite watered-down language, mentions coal power (regrettably, in terms of “phase down” and “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies).

·         It has declared a climate and ecological emergency and is taking steps to become a Zero Carbon Council by 2030 or sooner.

·         It has established and chairs the Zero Carbon Oxford Partnership, including both Universities, to build a Zero Carbon Oxford by 2040 or sooner.

This Council further notes that:

·         The University of Oxford and its constituent colleges are anchored institutions (to use the language of community wealth building) and crucial to the journey to Zero Carbon and the creation of a fairer economy and stronger society.

·         The large endowments of the Colleges give them a unique opportunity to repurpose funds to help achieve a sustainable planet.

·         People employed and educated by the University Colleges sustain the work and life of those institutions, so that the climate and ecological concerns of such individuals should be reflected outwards at an organisational level.

This Council welcomes an initiative of the Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, Fossil Free Oxfordshire, the Oxford Student Union, and the Cambridge Student Union—the creation of the Climate League of Oxford and Cambridge (CLOC) or, as it is known, the Green Norrington Table.

This Council calls on the Leader to write to the Heads of House and Bursars of each of the University’s constituent colleges to:

·         Highlight the Green Norrington Table as a tool for prospective, current, and future students at Colleges, University faculty, College employees, and citizens, to scrutinise the climate-mitigating ambition of each College and understand their relative performance based on their ranking in the table.

• Encourage Colleges to engage with the Green Norrington Table, including responding to and, in future give consideration to shaping, the questionnaires used to evaluate climate-mitigating performance.
  Respond to climate concerns by urgently publishing plans to reach net zero.

This Council calls on the Leader to write to the Vice-Chancellors of both Universities and the Heads of House and Bursars of each of the University of Oxford’s constituent colleges encouraging them to:

• Sever financial ties to the fossil fuel industry to stimulate an end to fossil fuel development, manage the decline of existing production, and encourage the shift to renewable energy sources through investments.

This Council endorses:

·         The call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty backed by Sydney, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Vancouver, Toronto, and Cambridge.

This Council calls on the Leader of the Council to ask the Prime Minister to:

·         Revisit and strengthen net zero goals and decarbonisation plans ahead of the return to global climate talks in 2022.

·         Increase climate finance and adaptation funding to developing countries and galvanise fellow rich countries to do the same.

·         Work in partnership to end global fossil fuel use and invest in clean energy generation and storage.

This motion was not taken as the time allocated for debate had finished.