The Biden administration seems to support increased academic engagement with the climate crisis

It looks like the Biden administration is taking an interest in how colleges and universities respond to climate change.  At least that’s a conclusion we can draw from this University World News account of a recent speech by John Kerry, the current and first American Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.

Kerry was addressing the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities, a group focused on academic-civic engagement.  He first spoke to climate justice at length on various points, according to Nathan Greenfield, then turned to higher education, where he envisioned two roles for the academy in the climate crisis, beginning with the physical nature of a campus:

The first is being a role model. Dormitories and other buildings must be refitted so that heat is not wasted. Food services should prioritise purchasing that minimises transportation. University and college fleets should be electric.

(This is a topic I cover in the second and finals chapters of Universities on Fire.)

Then Kerry went further.  In his view, higher education should boost student and faculty involvement with the climate crisis:

It is the role of universities to ensure that their graduates are “public citizens” who not only vote but also hold to account US Congress which, as he put it, “is not reflective of the urgency that needs to be applied” to climate change.

Pursuing this point, Kerry went after the ivory tower idea and cast it aside:

The situation is so dire that universities can no longer keep the intellectual powers of their professors and researchers inside the campus gates. “I think there’s a fundamental responsibility for the university not just to teach its student body, but to be responsible for teaching the community and the world around it.”

(I cover this in chapters three through six of Universities on Fire.)

What does this mean for higher education and the climate crisis?

Perhaps we can infer too much from this report.  It is, after all, one speech by one official of the very large American presidential administration. Kerry was also addressing a group devoted to engagement and may have felt bound to celebrate or at least echo their mission.

On the other hand, special presidential enjoy Kerry reports directly to president Biden, so he may well be representing what he’s hearing from the latter, or at least what’s being discussed in that administration’s upper echelons. People there may well be arguing in favor of reaching out to academia for help on what we know is a major issue for this presidency.  As COP-21 draws near, the Biden team may want a whole of nation effort on climate change; bringing in academia would make sense.