CoF Post 2/13: A true story – decarbonization at a crossroads

The true story of decarbonization at a crossroads. Read the true story at our report launch or on Instagram.

Dear Cornell on Fire,

Much has transpired since we shared the white paper on Cornell’s decarbonization pathways with you on December 30. This is a true story best told in images: like it on Instagram! 

Highlights: Interim President Kotlikoff penned an op-ed countering our paper and reiterating Cornell’s argument for delayed decarbonization. Our collaborators emailed Kotlikoff to explain where our methodologies diverge. We engaged in discussions with the Cornell Energy Team and presented our findings to the larger community, including Cornell. We wrote op-eds to the Cornell Daily Sun and the Ithaca Voice (pending). 

The response has been dramatic at times, causing us to reflect upon larger questions.

It’s clear that much is at stake. The integrity of Ithaca’s progressive energy law hinges on the outcome of this debate because Cornell is trying to exempt their campus from Ithaca’s fossil-fuel phaseout. The integrity of Cornell’s climate leadership is at stake because Cornell is publicly arguing for delayed decarbonization on the same flawed grounds that the American Gas Association (AGA) uses to cripple America’s energy transition. Cornell’s continued insistence on an incorrect methodology known to overestimate the benefits of gas would amount to replicating Big Oil’s misinformation. Once again, a course correction is needed: Will Cornell publicly reject – or replicate – Big Oil’s climate doublespeak?

It’s equally clear that this goes way beyond Cornell the Corporation vs. Cornell on Fire. The argument for near-term heat decarbonization enjoys widespread support among industry experts, academics, Cornell faculty, the Student Assembly, local environmentalists, and local government. In our experience, when presented with public viewpoints that challenge its dominant narrative, Cornell representatives tend to oversimplify the diversity of perspectives before them. Lest this occur in the public discussion around Cornell’s energy transition, let us be clear: Many diverse actors are concerned that Cornell’s plan for delayed decarbonization is faulty. This fact alone should cause an administration focused on science to reassess their plans and welcome new evidence. 

We must ask: Is Cornell’s climate action a collective effort that belongs to us all, or a proprietary project owned by a small set of actors? Will insights from activist and academic allies be welcomed, or dismissed as meddling and “fault-finding?” 

Further, how are we to interpret Cornell’s climate actions in light of the University’s conflicted context? Cornell (like Big Oil) stands to reap economic benefits from the continued use of gas heating at their University-owned power plant. Cornell’s Board of Trustees is beholden to oil and gas industry players, including newly-announced Chair Anne Meinig, who profits from Mexico’s natural gas pipelines and continues her father’s legacy of conflict of interest. Cornell still pursues donations from major fossil fuel players, fostering unhealthy dependencies on an illegitimate industry. Under these conditions, can we trust that Cornell’s climate messaging and actions will be free from fossil-fuel influence?  

Finally, there is an elephant in this room. Debating whether Cornell should decarbonize heat in new construction projects begs the question: Why is Cornell engaged in new construction at all? Kotlikoff’s op-ed passionately argues for reducing load on a strained grid but fails to mention the strain caused by Cornell’s relentless campus expansion.* Switching to heat pumps in new construction would reduce a given building’s operational emissions by 54-92% (depending on the future grid scenario) – but avoiding* new construction would reduce those emissions by 100%. In fact, it would reduce emissions more than 100% if Cornell (a) publicly announced that they are embracing degrowth and encouraged peer institutions to do the same; and (b) used the money instead to fund Earth Source Heat’s “game-changing technology” (as Kotlikoff aptly described it), which is currently stalled for lack of funding.* 

As earth’s living systems deteriorate, Cornell must break from the extreme carbon inequality and injustice perpetrated by the globe’s polluter elite. It must reduce energy use, engage in load shifting, and degrow the campus economy. That means changing lifestyles and restructuring the campus economy to avoid carbon-intensive behaviors: not just creating “efficiencies”* or “offsetting” its carbon pollution for a net-zero trap. 

And as US democracy, such as it is, deteriorates further, it is more important than ever that Cornell combat climate misinformation and take decisive action to address the climate emergency. Climate betrayal at the federal level makes climate action at the local level more critical – indeed, it is now mission critical. 

Cornell’s climate action does belong to all of us. Cornell will not reach their climate goals unless we hold it accountable. To build the positive pressure, Zoom into our working group meeting (every Wednesday from 1-2pm), sign the call to decarbonize Cornell, read our report launch, or “like” and spread the true story.

Truly,

Cornell on Fire

*Asterisks indicate where you can find supplemental notes (immediately below).

Supplemental Notes:

Cornell’s construction spree calls into question their climate pledge to reduce campus expansion: Cornell’s 2013 Climate Action Plan Update and Roadmap  pledged to “cut campus space projections in half compared to our 2009 projections – from 4M to 2M square feet of new space” [this figure apparently includes all future campus expansion, or at least through 2040]. Cornell’s pledge was accompanied by two observations: (1) “The most sustainable structure is the one that is never built;” and (2) “We have seven billion people on this earth, and in the last 50 years we’ve consumed more raw materials than in all previous human history …The EPA says that new construction is the single largest source of human toxicity” (p. 43). Evidently, neither consideration was important enough to dampen Cornell’s appetite for campus expansion. 

In their 2013 STARS report, Cornell reported the gross total of campus facilities at 15.4 million square feet (SF). By 2023, that number had grown to 16.6 million SF, for a total of 1.2 million square feet added between 2013-2023. Cornell’s current construction spree adds to that figure. In 2024, a snapshot of current and planned major construction projects at Cornell included: Atkinson Hall (104,000 square feet), Bowers College of Computing (135,000 SF), Meinig Fieldhouse (91,150 SF), Thurston/Tang Hall addition (50,550 SF), Duffield Hall expansion (46,000 SF), and other smaller projects. The major projects alone total nearly half a million square feet. 

Cornell’s total construction (completed, current, or actively planned) since 2013 totals nearly 1.7 million additional SF – rapidly closing in on Cornell’s pledge to limit future campus expansion to 2 million SF. That leaves precious little room for new construction in the coming decades if Cornell is to make good on their pledge. Will Cornell hold themselves to their pledge to limit campus expansion to 2M square feet? Who is monitoring and tracking this pledge? We have not heard this mentioned in any University State of Sustainability Address yet. 

Avoiding new construction: Cornell’s Sustainable Campus webpage lays out the carbon reduction hierarchy of Cornell’s climate action plan as follows: #1: Avoid carbon intensive activities. Everything else is listed as less “impactful and efficient.” Unfortunately, there is no evidence to suggest that Cornell is avoiding carbon-intensive activities. Cornell’s most carbon-polluting activities include new construction (raging ahead), aviation (Cornell faculty and staff recorded more emissions from university-funded air travel in 2024 than any year previously recorded!), facilities (Cornell is trying to delay decarbonization - the point of this post), and procurement (Cornell does not regularly track progress on this front). 

Cornell’s construction spree costs far more than Earth Source Heat: What are Cornell’s real priorities? In 2024, the financial snapshot of current and planned construction projects at Cornell included: Atkinson Hall ($54 million), Bowers College of Computing ($100 million), Meinig Fieldhouse (initially estimated at $55 million, now larger), Thurston/Tang Hall addition ($29.5 million), Duffield Hall expansion ($66.3 million), the Wilson Lab Synchrotron Extension ($32.6 million), and others. The combined total is $337.4 million dollars. Compare that to the $250 million estimated cost of the entire Earth Source Heat Project. Earth Source Heat is the cornerstone of Cornell’s Climate Action Plan and their flagship “game-changing technology.” If Cornell is truly committed to their own and New York’s climate goals, then how do we explain these spending priorities? Surely Cornell’s donors see value in Big Red’s revolutionary heat decarbonization experiment (even if some of them are fossil fuel tycoons)? Cornell has an active role to play in structuring their fundraising campaigns and directing capital decisions toward mission-critical infrastructure. They are making all the wrong decisions from a climate perspective. 

Efficiencies are not enough: Efficiencies save a bit of energy here but license us to use more energy there, triggering the Jevons Paradox. You can read more about this in the specific case of Cornell in our Climate Action Plan report.

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Plurivocality: CoF Posts are written by a revolving team of writers. Our movement is diverse, so are our thoughts, and so will be our posts. If you receive a CoF Post that you think is wrong headed, can we still walk together? (We, like you, sometimes write things we later laugh at!) 

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