Students at one of Britain’s top universities have written to their chancellor calling on him to shut down a BP archive based at the campus library in what amounts to an escalation of campaigns against fossil fuel companies.
Warwick University students this summer successfully persuaded the academic board to halt investments in coal, gas and oil companies, and believe the BP archive should have no place either.
They are also angry that students have not been allowed to properly access the archive, which is believed to contain valuable research into renewable energy that was discarded when the company switched its focus back on to oil and gas.
On Monday, the students will use the official start of the winter university term to formally begin the campaign, which has set a deadline of 30 November for management to begin steps towards removing BP from campus. Campaigns calling for divestment and disengagement have spread from the US to UK universities, charities and other institutions.
Leah Lapautre, a member of the group Fossil Free Warwick, said: “After successfully winning our campaign for divestment, we’re taking the fight straight to a major fossil fuel company this year.
“BP’s presence on Warwick’s campus is an insidious example of the close connection between the fossil fuel industry and our public institutions. To have the presence of BP’s corporate archive on our campus is outrageous, given the desperate need we have to break the power of this industry and take action on climate change; it legitimises their behaviour and sends the message that our community is ok with what BP is doing. It’s also inconsistent with Warwick’s pledge to stop investing in these companies.”
The Warwick group, with its BP Off Campus initiative, is linking up with the national network of anti‐BP groups, and supported protests at the British Museum earlier this month.
It has been highlighting the fact that BP was last week highlighted as top of a list of fossil fuel companies that were alleged to be obstructing action in Europe on climate change.
Carl-Henric Svanberg, the chairman of BP, insisted that nothing is locked away when he was challenged about the archive at the company’s annual general meeting in April.
But Warwick students said they have been not been able to gain access and claim that all documents post 1976, when a multi-billion pound green research and development drive was taking place, are kept away from the public.
The company said it had no comment to make about the prospect of a campaign against the Warwick archive. BP has always argued that it accepts climate change is a major threat, but believes oil and gas will continue to be needed in the world.
Its chief executive, Bob Dudley, has said the United Nations global warming summit in Paris in December needed to broker agreements to encourage the growth of energy efficiency schemes as well as renewable power such as wind and the use of gas.
The more positive engagement by BP and Shell compares with the more sceptical stance of US companies such as Exxon.