Letter to the editor: LSE and climate change

It is very good to see a debate in ‘The Beaver’ about sustainability at LSE, and climate change in particular (‘A Changing Climate at LSE’ and ‘LSE and the climate emergency’).

LSE has set up a Sustainability Advisory Group consisting of very senior staff members, with student representation and led by Nicholas Stern, the chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. I understand that the Group will seek to foster and drive forward LSE’s impact on the world through public policy and engagement, as well as developing an action plan to embed sustainability across all our activities, including teaching and research, as part of the implementation of LSE’s 2030 strategy. It should create opportunities for staff and students to participate in cutting urgently our emissions of greenhouse gases, which drive climate change, and making LSE more resilient to those impacts that we cannot now avoid.

LSE’s Director, Minouche Shafik, announced on 19 September that LSE will reduce its emissions to net zero (cutting them as much as possible and compensating for any residual amounts by equivalent removals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, for instance by planting trees) by no later than 2050. Even though LSE already uses 100 per cent clean electricity, it will still be a tremendous challenge to eliminate our emissions in every other area, including travel to and from LSE. LSE is now one of a handful of UK universities that are leading by example by setting a target for ending its contribution to climate change.

Bob Ward
Policy and Communications Director
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
London School of Economics and Political Science