Dear U-M Regent,
I writing to you to express my concern that the University’s commitment to carbon neutrality lacks urgency and is not being prioritized.
In May of last year, the president and regents committed to implement the recommendations from the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality (PCCN) to put the University on a path to carbon neutrality saying:
“Today’s commitments place carbon neutrality at the center of U-M’s mission. To fulfill our mission as a public research university, we must address the climate crisis by leading the way on our campuses and beyond, creating, testing and teaching the knowledge and technologies that will transfer to other large institutions, and inspiring and empowering others to solve the defining scientific and social challenge of our time.”
We can no longer continue to think that climate change will be something we can deal with later or as part of business-as-usual. We are already feeling catastrophic impacts from climate change, and they will only get worse. To implement the PCCN recommendations and to be leaders and best in education we need urgent action to date has been sadly lacking.
We urge you to include leadership for implementing the PCCN recommendations as a leading criterion for the selection of our new President. In addition we urge you to accelerate the external search for the new Carbon Neutrality executive reporting to the President so that the top 3-4 candidates are identified for a decision upon the appointment of the new President.
