2. Cornell is elite – the polluter elite.

11,000 scientists issued a declaration of climate emergency in 2019, stating that “the climate crisis is closely linked to excessive consumption of the wealthy lifestyle.” They could have been speaking to Cornell, with a $10 billion endowment and a carbon footprint larger than the 22 lowest-emitting nations in the world (and larger than the bottom eight combined; see Spotlight on Carbon Inequality). Elites like Cornell are disproportionately driving climate change with their outsized emissions: even if the rest of humanity cut their emissions to zero now, the globe’s top 10% would blow through our global carbon budget by 2033. 

As an elite University, we cannot escape the ethical dimensions of carbon inequality. “What the 1% do is overuse the earth’s resources through extraction, hyperconsumption, a discard culture that produces enormous amounts of waste and pollution – all these processes together create significant strains to planetary systems.” Yet rather than challenging carbon inequality, Cornell promotes it through all the accouterments of affluence and convenience: frequent flying, personal car culture, constant campus growth, excessive square footage, wealth accumulation, hyperconsumption, throw-away culture, and massive waste production. This comes at a tremendous cost to local and international wellbeing. 

How costly is it, exactly? To answer that question, we turn to Cornell’s carbon pollution as measured by greenhouse gas emissions inventories, aka “GHG Inventories.” Keep in mind that when we speak about greenhouse gas emissions noted in metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent (mtCO2e), this can be seen as a proxy for the entire system of consumption, extraction, production, toxicity, and land use that is driving Earth beyond safe planetary boundaries. Each of these human activities carries an emissions signature that shows up (when properly accounted for) in GHG inventories.

3. Cornell’s carbon pollution far exceeds what is covered by its Climate Action Plan.

It’s hard to grasp the full scope of Cornell’s carbon emissions from their public Baseline Inventory, which reports only those emissions covered by their Climate Action Plan (compliant with the Second Nature Carbon Commitment). A fuller, but still incomplete, picture would include the emissions categories that Cornell calls their “Additional Inventory.” That picture is provided in Figure 1, which presents all of Cornell’s publicly reported emissions in one place using data from Cornell’s Emissions Inventory and Disclosure to STARS. This Total Reported Emissions Inventory includes upstream methane emissions, electricity exported to the grid for sale, and purchased goods and services (aka procurement) in addition to the Baseline Inventory categories, all in GWP100.

Keep in mind that Figure 1 is still a significant underestimate of Cornell’s actual GHG emissions, because they are reported in GWP100 (a concept explained below) and we could not include the sure-to-be-colossal emissions figures from investments or student travel. Like other US universities, Cornell does not report these figures publicly.

Figure 1: The gap between Cornell’s Baseline and Total Reported Emissions Inventories

This graph shows the best estimate of Cornell’s Total Reported Emissions for the year 2022 using a 100-year GWP (right), as compared to their Baseline Inventory emissions reported on the public webpage (left). This illustrates that several significant categories of emissions are not reported in Cornell’s Baseline Inventory, and should be addressed as part of a comprehensive plan to reduce emissions. It is important to note that these numbers for upstream methane emissions are much larger when using GWP20, the standard required by the 2019 NY State Climate Act (see Figure 4).

This graph shows what a difference accounting choices can make. The casual observer would be forgiven for concluding, on the basis of Cornell’s Baseline Inventory, that Cornell generated about 160,000 net mtCO2e in 2022. In fact, that net figure represents only 31% of the gross 515,000 mtCO2e that make up the full ledger of Cornell’s publicly reported emissions – a figure that still excludes investments and student travel.

These accounting choices, standard for many colleges and universities under Second Nature’s reporting guidelines, have a troubling real-world consequence: Cornell’s Climate Action Plan only addresses a subset of predetermined emissions categories. As shown in Figure 2 below, the Climate Action Plan pledges to resolve 200,000 mtCO2e annually, a mere 40% of all reported emissions. Researchers within Cornell are pushing for increased awareness of these emissions categories and they receive mention in the 2013 Climate Action Plan. But there is currently no publicly accountable plan in place to reduce emissions from major categories such as procurement (which totaled an astonishing 270,261 mtCO2e in 2022) or electricity exported to the grid for profit, not to mention investments or student travel. If comprehensive climate action is to be taken, it will only be because the people demand it. 

Accounting choices are not mere entries on a ledger – they are decisions that impact the public’s understanding of, and Cornell’s accountability for, major emissions categories, with direct consequences for the climate. We urge Cornell to report and take accountability for all of their Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions in one “big-picture” inventory, following positive steps in that direction by organizations such as Google.

Figure 2: Cornell’s Climate Action Plan and Key Actions address only part of their total emissions (source)

As Figure 2 shows, Cornell plans to carry out key actions to address an annual 200,000 mtCO2e in the years leading up to 2035, representing only those categories of campus emissions that are “included in our commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2035.” Yet their total reported annual emissions exceed 500,000 mtCO2e (figures in GWP100). The primary strategies for reducing baseline emissions are carbon sinks and sequestration, renewable electricity, Peak Heat Supply, and Earth Source Heat. Read on for up-to-date analyses of these strategies.

4. Cornell’s plan for “carbon neutrality” is a dangerous trap.

A carbon-neutral Cornell by 2035 is not enough—the goal of carbon neutrality or “net zero” is a dangerous trap. To achieve local and global climate goals in line with an equitable transition, Cornell must achieve zero-carbon emissions. That means emissions actually fall to zero, as opposed to “net zero,” where Cornell (on current plans) continues to emit over 30,000 mtCO2e annually that are then “deducted” in the name of false solutions (see Section 10). That also means that when Cornell pledges to power campus with renewable electricity, they actually displace some 50,000-plus mtCO2e of fossil-fueled electricity annually with renewable electricity – rather than continuing to power campus with natural gas while paying solar developers for renewable energy credits on top of that (see Spotlight on Solar). 

Cornell’s Climate Action Plan preserves current levels of vast energy and material consumption while seeking “sustainable” ways to meet or offset that demand. The pretense is that Cornell can somehow maintain current levels of elite pollution while also meeting urgent climate goals. It cannot. The international consensus is clear and urgent: projected carbon emissions must be halved by 2030, with rapid decreases towards zero after that, and the globe’s polluter elite must lead by rapidly and drastically cutting their consumptions.

Instead of reducing emissions only insofar as it aligns with its “mission,” as Cornell often spins it, the priorities must be flipped. We must slash emissions by 2030 to preserve a habitable planet – and we must rebuild our mission and operations around that goal. 

5. Cornell runs its own power plant – and it’s cheap, lucrative, and dirty.

You knew Cornell is in the business of knowledge production, but did you know it’s also in the business of energy production? The Combined Heat and Power Plant burns natural gas to “cogenerate” both heat and electricity to Cornell’s Ithaca campus. It produces so much electricity that it exports some to the grid for sale. Translation: Cornell makes money off burning natural gas (and then declines to take accountability for those emissions, as explained in Section 6). There is nothing remotely clean or green about natural gas: it’s composed almost entirely of methane, the second-largest contributor (behind CO2) to global warming.

This may seem counterintuitive. Why would a University run its own power plant? According to a 2022 Reuters investigation into big university polluters including Cornell: “many [campuses] operate their own plants to ensure themselves a supply of cheap and reliable power, and to avoid dependence on surrounding electric grids that often are decaying from age and underinvestment.” By running its own plant, Cornell secures cheap energy and immunity from grid outages that affect the rest of Ithaca.

It also ensures that Cornell’s campus is powered by, and often sells, dirtier electricity than the rest of the local grid. The New York Upstate grid is the cleanest in the country, served primarily by clean energy from hydro and nuclear. As you would expect, Cornell’s gas-fired plant is significantly dirtier than the local grid on average (specifically, +300 pounds of CO2 per megawatt, 2020). But that’s not quite the whole story. Natural gas plants in Upstate New York still typically serve as “marginal” generators to supply electricity needs not met by cleaner sources. Cornell’s plant outperforms some of the other natural gas plants in this category, making it a less bad option for meeting marginal demand.

Of course, everyone agrees that the ultimate solution is to phase out all fossil fuel plants. But until we get there, is Cornell’s plant helping or hurting our collective emissions reduction efforts?  

The answer to that question hinges on the double-edged nature of cogeneration. Like other cogeneration plants, Cornell’s plant achieves efficiencies by using the byproduct of electricity production (steam) to produce heat for campus. This is a major improvement over conventional plants that do not harness byproduct heat and means Cornell’s plant may sometimes beat other generators on bang for their Btu. Furthermore, Cornell’s plant has state-of-the-art catalytic controls for NOx on their combustion gas turbines. To the extent that Cornell’s electricity is exported to the grid on the basis of GHG considerations rather than cost, it may reduce overall grid emissions. (And cost considerations may be critical.) 

But there is a flip side to cogeneration. So long as campus requires heat, it also locks Cornell’s plant into producing dirty electricity even if renewable electricity is available. The sun can shine all it wants on a cold winter day (as it did on March 7, 2020), but it will not displace fossil-fueled electricity at Cornell because the plant must generate electricity in order to create heat. In such cases, Cornell’s plant may force electricity onto the grid even when it’s the dirtiest option available.  

Thus, there may be a dance between campus-wide and system-wide grid emissions reductions. As long as Cornell is using its plant for heat and renewable supply is low, it could be more efficient system-wide for the plant to sell surplus electricity to the grid. But those advantages are lost when Cornell is not using its plant for heat (think, every warm day), or when the need for heat locks in dirty electricity over renewable electricity (think, every sunny cold day). The experts we spoke with emphasized the need to make grid export decisions on the basis of GHG emissions rather than profit, and to power down Cornell’s plant when heat is not needed. Most urgently, they emphasized the need to begin rapidly phasing out natural-gas operations to achieve tandem campus-wide and system-wide emissions reductions. 

6. Cornell underreports its greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas. 

In 2009, Cornell’s campus transitioned from coal to natural gas with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At the time, natural gas was lauded as a “bridge fuel” for the energy transition. Tragically, we now know that natural gas is as bad as coal. You wouldn’t know that from looking at Cornell’s Baseline Inventory, however (Figure 3). It shows a steep drop in emissions from 2008 to 2012, reflecting the campus transition from coal to natural gas, which Cornell’s Sustainability website claims is “lower-carbon energy.” This is false and misleading, according to Professor Robert Howarth. We now know that the “decline” in GHG emissions is illusory due to unaccounted upstream methane emissions from natural gas and underestimates of methane’s severe global warming potential. 

Figure 3: Cornell’s Baseline Inventory suggests GHG “reductions” from the transition from coal to natural gas (source)

From the Cornell Sustainable Campus website, Cornell’s baseline greenhouse gas inventory “measures the categories of emissions from the Ithaca, NY campus included in our commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2035. Emissions from all six greenhouse gases are measured and translated into metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, and reported using the Second Nature and GHG Protocol methodology.” Brackets are added noting the driving factor behind two sustained periods of emissions reductions: the transition from coal to natural gas (2008-2012), and Covid-19 disrupted operations (2019-2022).

Cornell on Fire spoke with experts including Cornell Professors Robert Howarth, Edwin A. Cowen, and Anthony Ingraffea, all of whom argued that Cornell needs greater transparency on methane emissions reporting. At issue is the reporting of upstream methane emissions and their global warming potential. “Upstream methane emissions” refers to methane leakage that occurs when natural gas is produced, stored, processed, transported, and used, including emissions released outside state boundaries. In Cornell’s case, as with the rest of New York, that would predominantly include emissions from shale gas extraction in Pennsylvania. “Global warming potential” (GWP) is a method of accounting for methane’s greenhouse gas contributions to global warming across different time horizons. According to growing scientific consensus, traditional means of accounting for GWP on a hundred-year horizon (GWP100) should now be replaced with a twenty-year horizon (GWP20), to better account for the most severe near-future impacts of methane.

To drop the technical “GWP” jargon and use a simplified analogy: Imagine you’re getting into a hot tub from which you cannot emerge. The control dial lets you calibrate a comfortable water temperature 100 minutes from now – without mentioning that it will first reach a boiling point at some point in the first 20 minutes. This would not be a very informative dial. A much better dial would allow you to calibrate the temperature for the most critical period so you can survive to reach 100 minutes and beyond. There is no dial for Earth, but this analogy points to why we should care about methane’s impacts on a near-future time horizon: we need to calibrate our emissions reductions today to avert peak global warming effects on the timescale that matters most for our climate goals. 

For that reason, experts have been urging Cornell for years to report its upstream methane emissions as part of its Baseline Inventory and use a 20-year GWP. In response to expert advocacy, in 2016 Cornell issued a report recommending the new reporting metrics. The Cornell Sustainability Office briefly changed its standards of Baseline Inventory reporting by including upstream methane emissions and using GWP20. One year later, for unknown reasons, the reporting method was reversed. (Ironically, Cornell is cited as a model in an academic article at that time by Professor Howarth.)

Years later, in May 2020, a working group led by then College of Engineering Dean Lance Collins submitted a recommendation to the Carbon Neutral Campus Steering Committee, which reports to the Sustainable Cornell Council Leadership, a recommendation that Cornell report its upstream methane emissions using a rate of 3.6% and both the GWP20 and GWP100 values for methane. The working group did not fully endorse the proposed leak rate, with dissent coming from Cornell Energy and Sustainability staff.  The working group asked Professor Cowen to review the May 2020 report and formal dissent document submitted by Cornell Energy and Sustainability staff. In May 2021, Professor Cowen submitted an MOU to the Carbon Neutral Campus Steering Committee accepting some of the arguments from each party, and reducing the recommended upstream methane leakage rate to 3.3%. 

Meanwhile, in 2019, New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), aka the Climate Act, issued new reporting requirements to include upstream out-of-state methane emissions and use GWP20. Cornell is subject to those laws as a recipient of state funding. They also constitute “bespoke requirements” for updated reporting under the IPCC Report 6 cited by Cornell’s Sustainability Office. Tompkins County and the Town of Ithaca have both adjusted their GHG inventories to reflect these metrics.

Yet Cornell’s Baseline Inventory (see Figure 3) continues to omit upstream methane emissions while using the traditional GWP100 accounting method, making no mention of the fact that significant emissions are excluded (see update to Cornell’s reporting on this point). Instead, those emissions reports are tucked away on a webpage called “Additional Inventory” with a jargon-filled explanation of what the numbers mean. To help the public better understand Cornell’s emissions, Figure 4 presents Cornell’s Baseline Inventory emissions as they should be reported according to New York State’s Climate Act and the recommendations of Cornell’s own faculty experts. As is clear, Cornell’s current Baseline Inventory accounting method significantly underestimates the scope of carbon pollution. For instance, the Baseline reports 201,000 net mtCO2e for 2018 (234,000 gross) while updated accounting measures total 413,000 gross mtCO2e. Including the most recent estimates for procurement emissions would bring Cornell’s total reported emissions for 2018 to an estimated 760,000 mtCO2e.

For instance, the Baseline reports 233,999 mtCO2e for 2018 while updated accounting measures total 412,855 mtCO2e. Including the most recent estimates for procurement emissions would bring Cornell’s total reported emissions for 2018 to an estimated 760,000 mtCO2e.

Figure 4: Cornell’s GHG Emissions as they should be reported under New York’s Climate Act (CLCPA)

"Current" bars display emissions from recent years as currently reported in Cornell's Baseline Inventory (using GWP100, excluding UME). "Updated" Bars report the same categories according to updated CLCPA standards (including UME figures from Cornell’s Additional Inventory, and using GWP20 across all reported scopes), as experts argue should baseline emissions should be reported. (Note: Data were drawn from SIMAP. One category of Scope 1 emissions, refrigerants and chemicals, could not be converted into GWP20 and is reported as the same value in both bars.) Note that the GHG estimate for methane emissions is higher when using the GWP20 as opposed to the GWP100, even for the same amount of methane emitted.

Cornell’s Baseline Inventory may be compliant with Second Nature’s reporting standards, which are silent on this issue, but it no longer reflects either scientific or New York State consensus. Ironically, Dr. Howarth noted that he has met with more success in advocating for updated emissions reporting standards at the New York State level than at Cornell. Why doesn’t Cornell follow the most advanced reporting guidelines?

Cornell’s Sustainable Campus page implies that these new emissions estimates are not included in the Baseline Inventory because they are not directly comparable to baseline years (chiefly 2008) due to changes in accounting methods. For instance, there is some uncertainty around precise upstream emissions from Cornell's coal and imported electricity from the grid in 2008. There is no uncertainty, however, about the bigger picture: “An abundance of scientific evidence now…shows that natural gas is at least as damaging to the climate as coal and may be worse due to inevitable leaks of unburned methane.” An inability to precisely report upstream emissions from coal and grid electricity in 2008 should not prevent Cornell from accurately reporting methane emissions now. Cornell should follow the lead of other New York entities including Tompkins County and the Town of Ithaca, who have deftly implemented and communicated the new reporting standards.

There is another twist when it comes to underreporting emissions. Cornell’s power plant exports energy to the grid for sale, but declines to account for those emissions on their own public GHG inventories, where the figures are instead deducted from the net total as “carbon sinks” (to the tune of 25,000 mtCO2e per year, GWP100). The numbers appear only in Cornell’s operations reports to STARS, where the deduction is justified by stating that it “represents the emissions associated with this energy not used on campus.” Multiple experts we spoke to agreed that these emissions should be included in Cornell’s Baseline Inventory under Scope 3. After all, Cornell is producing, selling, and likely profiting from this electricity.  Additionally, Cornell does not report the amount of methane leaked on-site at the Central Energy Plant, although this figure is known and can be tracked (by calculating the difference between the amount of gas purchased and the amount of gas burned). It can also be smelled. Take a tour of the plant!

7. Cornell is falling behind its Climate Action Plan goals – dramatically.

Cornell has pledged steep reductions of greenhouse gas emissions to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035. Whatever way you slice it, they are falling behind.

Comparing Cornell’s reported Baseline Inventory to their Climate Action Plan Roadmap reveals that emissions reductions are not happening as quickly as planned, even on their own accounting methods (see Figure 5). To be on track for carbon neutrality by 2035, Cornell’s Projected Campus Emissions for 2022 needed to be 135,000 (net) mtCO2e. Instead, Actual Campus Emissions reported for 2022 were 160,000 (net) or 195,000 (gross) mtCO2e (GWP100). Indeed, since the initial “drop” in emissions due to the transition from coal to natural gas (an illusory drop), University emissions have flatlined, with the exception of temporary reductions reflecting Covid-19 disrupted operations.

Figure 5: Cornell’s emissions reductions are lagging behind projected goals, even on their own accounting methods

And the big picture is even more troubling: After properly accounting for methane’s twenty-year global warming potential and upstream emissions from burning natural gas, as shown in Figure 4, Cornell’s GHG emissions have not decreased at all, and may have actually increased since 2008. 

Consider the implications. Since Cornell launched its ambitious Climate Action Plan pledging steep emissions reductions in 2008, overall greenhouse gas emissions have at best remained constant, or may have even increased. 

This can be attributed to persistent failures to make costly tradeoffs in the name of climate. Instead of slashing emissions, Cornell continues to construct new buildings, build new gas infrastructure, bristle at the City of Ithaca’s Green Building code, spend millions of dollars on flights, hoard wealth in the endowment, and generally behave as if emissions reductions were a distant secondary consideration.

This graph shows Cornell's projected emissions reductions as outlined in their 2013 Climate Action Plan & Roadmap (green line) as compared to actual gross and net emissions as reported on their Baseline Inventory. Projected values are estimates. Performance values were drawn from the Baseline Inventory on the Sustainable Cornell webpage. Note that these figures reflect Cornell’s own Baseline Inventory accounting methods, so they exclude significant emissions categories and use traditional reporting standards (GWP100, excluding upstream methane emissions).

Meanwhile, Cornell’s Sustainability Office asserts that Cornell is “on track for carbon neutrality by 2035.” Cornell has not publicly reported the lag in their own Climate Action Plan goals, nor has it reviewed progress on the promised schedule. According to Dr. Howarth, Cornell planned to conduct a review in 2021 to determine progress towards carbon neutrality. Among other objectives, this would assess whether changes in natural gas usage are on track to meet our goals, as well as progress towards Earth Source Heat so that Cornell can pivot if needed (see below). The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted this review and Howarth was unaware of any progress on that front. If the review has been conducted, it has not been well communicated. 

Currently, there are only a handful of full-time staff dedicated to Cornell’s Climate Action Plan, serving a campus population of nearly 30,000 (weighted) users. At bare minimum, far more resources and staffing power should be put into this mission-critical project.

Every expert we spoke with emphasized that periodic reviews of progress, combined with active updates of Cornell’s climate goals in line with the rapidly changing climate situation,  are crucial for maintaining transparency and ensuring adequate action. This transparency can in turn fuel healthy public engagement, debate, and social mobilization.

8. Cornell’s flagship emissions-reduction strategy will come too late – if it comes at all.

The ambitious Earth Source Heat project intended to drive Cornell’s transition to renewable heat is a worthy research project, but an increasingly tenuous engineering solution. Now about ten years in, Earth Source Heat (ESH) is still in the research phase. It remains to be seen if and when it will move to the implementation and engineering phases. Cornell Professor Anthony Ingraffea, an expert consultant on ESH, told Cornell on Fire that the odds of success are “at this time in the project at best 50/50.” Despite that uncertainty, Cornell has a lot riding on this project.

The inherent uncertainty of a research project on this scale renders the timeline for implementation ambiguous. The problem is, our timeline for emissions reductions is not. Even if it succeeds, ESH will come online too late to help with the critical goal of massive emissions reductions by 2030. It was originally projected to begin operations around 2030, a date now pushed back to 2035 on one estimate. Professor Ingraffea estimates that the very best possible outcome, requiring “the best-case circumstances of technological availability, financial backing, good weather, and good luck,” would see an operating system that supplies ESH to a substantial portion of campus by 2029. 

Cornell needs a plan to reduce energy consumption prior to 2030 while waiting for ESH to come online. Cornell’s power plant cannot continue belching out thousands of tons of carbon pollution from natural gas while it waits to see if ESH works, spinning its turbines while other emissions reductions strategies “stagnate” (in Ingraffea’s words). 

If Earth Source Heat is a bust, Cornell’s backup plan is Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHPs). Unlike ESH, this is a proven technology already being used on other campuses, such as Princeton, to move away from fossil fuels. These devices are less efficient than ESH and require more electricity for the same amount of heating, but are still more efficient than many other technologies. 

Here’s the rub: Ground Source Heat Pumps and Earth Source Heat require significantly different infrastructure. Cornell will need to decide between these two technologies well in advance of the relevant deadline to allow for installation of the appropriate infrastructure. If Cornell is going to meet international climate goals to halve emissions by 2030, then a public timeline for decision-making around ESH and contingency plans must be rolled out immediately. Additionally, without community pressure, there is risk that decision makers within Cornell may not be willing to make a timely investment in either of these solutions. 

Earth Source Heat is a keystone of Cornell’s Climate Action Plan, and is justly heralded as a transformative research project. What’s missing is frank acknowledgement that the chances of success are 50/50. What’s needed is clear public communication and debate about the success and risks of Earth Source Heat, timelines for infrastructural decisions at a pace consistent with climate goals, and aggressive pursuit of alternative emissions reductions pathways in the meantime. Anything else is speculative gambling with our collective future.

9. Cornell’s mantra must shift from “we must always meet energy demand” to “energy demand must meet our climate goals.”

Cornell’s Cornell’s power plant mantra, like the rest of the US power grid, holds that “we must always meet energy demand.” As noted above, Cornell has focused on purchasing enough solar renewable energy credits to match its consumption on an annual basis. Its actual operations, meanwhile, are unchanged, geared at meeting demand at all costs – including costs to our climate goals. Cornell has the ability to implement a new mantra, “energy demand must meet our climate goals.” This would entail a different approach to peak demand and unlimited energy supply. 

Like the rest of the grid, Cornell generates tremendous emissions to meet “peak” demand – time periods when there is unusually high demand for power, such as hot summer days with excessive air conditioning. To meet peak cooling demand, Cornell fires up extremely dirty “chillers” as a supplement to the cleaner Lake Source Cooling system. But peaker plants are not a solution: they are one of the problems accelerating climate change, are subject to looser regulations than baseload plants, and serve as a crutch for untenable expectations for unlimited energy. Nonetheless, Cornell remains fixated on meeting peak demand at all costs. The Climate Action Plan involves elaborate strategizing around peaking, including preserving the existing power plant (read: natural gas), or perhaps using manure or biomass, as a peak heat source. 

The alternative to peaker plants is simple: reduce demand as it approaches peak. This can be accomplished through demand-side changes, such as informing consumers that the grid is stressed and asking them to do their part to power down. It can also be accomplished through policies such as load management or “load shaping,” intermittency, and interruptible load agreements. These mechanisms offer a suite of strategies that allow designated systems to be shifted or turned off temporarily as needed. Did you know that there are renewable passive buildings with fully-functioning research programs that can power down partially when it’s cloudy? Cornell could lead the Ivies by designing a responsive energy grid that combines consumer information programs with hard-wired load management mechanisms to collectively, collaboratively “power down” when demand is reaching dangerous levels. 

The jargon may be technical, but this energy use shift would be fundamental. What it means is that we respond to Earth rather than demanding that the Earth respond to us, at all costs. The conventional fixation on short-term energy reliability is sacrificing long-term energy reliability and our climate goals. The myth of unlimited energy supply is false and has only perpetuated inequity. By implementing flexible demand strategies for a responsive grid, Cornell can reduce and shift demand to avoid the need for peaker plants and better optimize time-matched renewable sources.

As well-respected climate journalist Sammy Roth puts it, “What’s more important: Keeping [all] the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis?” Shifting expectations around “reliability” would accelerate an equitable transition away from fossil fuels. But according to one expert, “we haven’t really gone through that exercise yet.” Cornell can and should take on this worthy exercise, accepting limits to energy consumption and synchronizing its energy demand to our climate goals while writing these into policy decisions.

A graphic from the United Nations Emissions Gap Report 2023: Broken Record drives home the point: “Temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions (again).”

10. Cornell has no plan to bring aviation and transport emissions to zero.

To meet our global climate goals in a just manner would require that carbon emissions come down to 2.1 tons per person per year by 2030. A single intercontinental flight easily blows through that budget (emitting anywhere from 2-5 mtCO2e). At Cornell, travel emissions comprise a large portion of overall GHG emissions (at least 12% of the Baseline Inventory for faculty alone). The impact is not limited to campus. Cornell actively lobbies for expansions to Tompkins County Airport to deliver easier access for university travelers, at the same time as climate experts object to airport expansion in the absence of feasible mitigation strategies for aviation emissions.

Students, staff, and faculty continue to fly around the world at unprecedented rates, as if in systematic denial of carbon emissions. Far from reducing flight travel, Cornellians are taking off at record levels. Fall 2023 saw unprecedented rates of travel by Cornell faculty and staff leading to delays in travel reimbursements, mirroring a wider surge that led to the busiest air travel day in American history. This is the same fall that the world temporarily hit a dreaded 2C warming above pre-industrial levels. What are we doing? 

Cornell’s response to flight emissions has been a little-known voluntary Low Carbon Air Travel Pilot program that gives nearly as much weight to false solutions (carbon offsets) as it does to ending emissions (avoiding flights). Carbon offsets are an inadequate solution for flight emissions even when implemented through contributions to great local partners. One problem is that they become a “license to pollute,” and moral licensing often has the unintended effect of increasing harmful behavior rather than reducing it. As social scientists explain, “individuals want the credit for moral intentions without having to pay the costs.” Linked to this, a recent Science publication expressed strong concern that “paying to pollute may reduce the moral misgivings of firms and elites about polluting.”

Ironically, the voluntary pilot program makes it clear that participants are “not committing to implementing any specific actions.” It also emphasizes that the goal is to find “sustainable paths forward without sacrificing the mission and values of our institution.” Are we to infer that Cornell is willing to sacrifice our collective climate goals to its “mission” as defined by the hypermobile status quo? 

Troublingly, the Climate Action Plan implies that the answer is yes. Instead of slashing travel emissions, Cornell proposes to “offset” these and other so-called “unavoidable emissions” with as yet unspecified “carbon sinks and sequestration.” Expert Peter Montague from the Science and Environmental Health Network provided Cornell on Fire with a policy brief addressing Cornell’s offset plan. He concludes that: 

“generalized plans to rely on soil carbon sequestration to “offset” CO2 emissions elsewhere are inherently subject to critical scientific unknowns and uncertainties… Before a university commits to such an enterprise, it would seem prudent and intellectually honest to publish a detailed plan that addresses [these] documented problems (and perhaps others that might be revealed by public comments on such a plan).”

As an institution and as individuals, we must reckon with the fact that academia’s current culture of aviation-based hypermobility is directly at odds with our climate goals while directly funding the fossil fuel industry. Following peer institutions across Canada and climate science movements across the world, Cornell should create a public, policy-driven plan to reduce student, staff, visitor, and faculty emissions from air travel and ground transport. Local mobility is a huge part of the picture as well. Cornell should also throw its support behind an electrified and expanded FreeCAT bus system, to dramatically reduce campus commuting emissions and serve climate justice.

It is sometimes argued that junior faculty and graduate students need to travel for success. Recent research suggests otherwise, with one study showing that beyond a minimum threshold, success is not correlated with more travel. Among many young scholars there is an overwhelming desire to fly less. Indeed, the experience of Covid-19 at Cornell confirmed the benefits of less travel for many individuals. Capitalizing on these benefits, Cornell could support faculty and staff in communicating Cornell’s climate priorities to entities that refuse virtual participation.

The last 50 years of academic hypermobility are increasingly obsolete with advances in video conferencing and accelerating climate devastation. Rather than perpetuating outdated norms of hypermobility, we urge Cornell to attract scholars and students by demonstrating real climate leadership, building thriving cross-campus and regional face-to-face collaboration networks, and adopting a low-carbon culture that incentivizes groundedness (consistent with many people's values and, not least, climate science). At the level of professional organizations, Cornell can leverage its prestige to advocate for regional hubs and virtual participation in conference organizing. In doing so, Cornell will join other leading universities that are rewriting social norms around carbon-intensive behavior. In making these changes, Cornell can draw inspiration from their own radical leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic.

11. Continued inaction is the riskiest proposition on the table.

Against all pledges to the contrary, Cornell has not reduced emissions since they began tracking progress in 2008. What’s more, the Climate Action Plan’s key strategies to deliver future emissions reductions are tenuous. Earth Source Heat has a 50/50 chance of success, renewable electricity is not actively displacing fossil fuels, and proposed carbon offsets are highly problematic. Meanwhile, high-confidence strategies for emissions reductions from travel reduction, reduced consumption, degrowth, and limits to energy demand languish on the sidelines. 

Each additional year of business as usual at Cornell is projected to emit well over 900,000 mtCO2e while foreclosing on critical windows of opportunity for climate transition. Cornellians, the community, and the planet cannot afford this inertia. Given mortality estimates of one future excess death for every 1,000 to 4,000 mtCO2 emitted, Cornell will be responsible for killing at least 175-700 future humans every year. That is an underestimate, because it excludes emissions from investments and student travel, among other things. 

We can change the system to meet our climate goals. This will require systemic transformation based on dramatically reduced consumption of energy and materials in all sectors combined with the wise use of existing technologies, rather than trivial “sustainability” changes at the margins, speculative technologies, and controversial “off-sets” (see below). One pragmatic way to ensure this shift in priorities would be for Cornell to charge itself a hefty carbon pollution fee. We urge Cornell to join leaders like the University of California by charging itself a carbon fee for every ton of ongoing carbon pollution and using the money to cut emissions, accelerate the energy transition, support climate justice, and fund the community. Carbon pollution fees could effectively mobilize Cornell’s $10 billion endowment to invest in the world’s ultimate bottom line: a livable future. In so doing, Cornell can begin to honor Indigenous principles of right relationship with Earth by taking no more than it needs and giving back as much as it takes. 

To close with the words of Professor Ingraffea, “Cornell needs to reduce emissions, reduce demand, and increase renewables in such a way that they operate in a direction for the future, not a direction for the status quo, as they are doing now.” Cornell’s 2030 Project reminds us that this is the “decisive decade.” Will Cornell rise to the occasion, or will the 2020s become the lost decade?

We are all involved. Cornell will not meet its climate goals unless students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members hold them accountable. 

Let’s do so. This is our one and final world.