‘UEA still isn’t doing enough, and there’s not a lot of institutional support for addressing climate change. ‘ This was the general belief of those involved in the third immensely successful People’s Assembly session at UEA this year. Despite being a global leader in climate research, UEA’s institutional and day-to-day sustainability practices lag far behind their academic achievements. Although UEA as an institution is seemingly indifferent to climate change, if you’re anxious, you’re not alone! Students Organising for Sustainability UK (SOS-UK) found that 77% of students were “very worried” about climate change and its effects. The People’s Assembly ‘Making UEA Fit for a Climate-Changed Future’ empowered and supported students and staff in imparting their thoughts and feelings on UEA’s approach to climate change and what constitutes radical climate action.  

The university’s current policies prioritise reducing emissions and upgrading infrastructure; however, the collaborators behind the People’s Assembly (Faculty for a Future [F4F], UEA’s Biodiversity and Climate Action Network [BCAN] and UKERC’s Public Engagement Observatory), and their participants, agreed that six principles including sustainability in all activities, social justice and collaboration, should underly all UEA policies and practices. The collaborative experiment used three participatory mapping sessions to creatively engage students and staff in systematic problem-solving and pool their individual opinions, perceptions and experiences.  

This third session evaluated the four competing visions for UEA’s future, which were conceptualised in previous sessions using the six underlying principles. However, the four visions, ranked least to most radical, described essential and urgent changes, such as divesting from Barclays and giving justice considerations in all operations, as a three out of four on the radical scale. Described as having a larger scope of interventions, the most radical approaches work beyond existing structures and show how movement away from business-as-usual approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation is continually labelled as radical. From denial campaigns that undermine climate scientists to radical flank and negative media narratives, transformative systemic change and climate action are persistently portrayed in society as extreme despite being essential to our survival on this planet.  

This preconceived notion of climate-focused transformation as radical was recognised by many of the organisers and attendees of the event. Reethu Ravi, a former BCAN member, an Environmental Sciences Master’s graduate and an Energy Journalist, discussed the singular nature of the proposed visions and commented on how transformative change, as opposed to transitional change, is viewed as radical. Kit Rackley, the Schools Climate Hub Coordinator at the UEA Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, also commented on the ‘very singular’ nature of the proposed visions and believed that collaboration and ‘addressing the wider community’ was not ‘radical’ and needed to be one of the first steps.  

This negative narrative around transformative climate action could be partly caused by a phenomenon known as “radical flank”, which first emerged during the Civil Rights Movement. When activists found they did not have the required economic and political power to cause change to law or politics, they applied more controversial and disruptive tactics from non-permitted marches and sit-ins to riots. Because of “the radical flank effect” this painted other non-controversial activists with the same disruptive brush, and this has emerged in the climate movement too. As the actions of activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil become more disruptive, the negative narrative of youth climate activists, climate action and climate transformations as radical grows. Anke Wonneberger from the Amsterdam School of Communication Research studies public perceptions of sustainability and said: ‘’Climate activists are often perceived as threatening, while young activists tend to be labelled as school truants’ and that this ‘threatening’ portrayal of climate activists is generally untrue. This notion of aggression has been ‘exaggerated in society’. Climate science denial and misinformation campaigns are also increasing and have resulted in polarisation and distrust of climate scientists and climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.  

Finbarr Carter, UEA Student Enterprise Officer, argued that the more ‘radical’ approaches may actually be too radical for UEA leadership, especially in changes to governance as this would mean considerable transformation from UEA’s current hierarchical bureaucratic governance. He discussed a pragmatic approach of ‘quick wins’ and what would be ‘achievable, not tokenistic but realistic.’ This was an overarching theme for many of the groups evaluating the visions. Although many argued sustainability, social justice, and collaboration were not radical suggestions but essential ones, most felt that UEA’s current governance model was the biggest obstacle to implementing these as a general practice. Ultimately, three out of four groups voted for the third most ‘radical’ vision out of the four proposed, entitled People’s Green University. It was felt, in a general consensus, that none of the visions were actually radical, and it was suggested that we must define the difference between a pragmatic response and the required response for a liveable planet.  

The event was tremendously successful, and an output report detailing the conclusions made will be released in October of this year. All of the collaborative experiment team’s findings will be shared with the Executive Team and Sustainability Committee at UEA to support ongoing discussions for UEA’s new sustainability strategy. Meanwhile, BCAN is committed to mobilising for change and will be setting up a working group to ‘devise an action strategy and start exploring’ how they can ‘effectively’ turn UEA into a ‘very democratic and sustainable institution’ and to ‘deliver a number of mini projects/ mobilisations addressing specific aspects of the desired future’. These goals stem from BCAN’s decision to take leadership, ‘to be the change we want to see of the university’, with many members and associates reporting they feel unsupported by UEA governance. You can get involved and register your interest in this climate campaign by contacting the assembly leader, senior research fellow and lecturer in Sustainable Consumption, Phedeas Stephanides, at p.stephanides@uea.ac.uk.

In response to this article, a UEA spokesperson said:

“Addressing climate issues is a priority for UEA, which is why we have developed our Environmental Sustainability Strategy, part of UEA Strategy 2030, to set our overarching ambitions and strategic activity, as well as focus efforts to meet our net zero commitment by 2045 or earlier.

Our teams have been hard at work on projects, including the development of the Thomas Paine Study Centre’s solar panel structure, Sportspark LED lighting upgrades, and the development of a Decarbonisation Strategy Plan, all of which will feature, alongside others, in the upcoming Environmental Report 2023-24, which we look forward to sharing in due course.”