Carbon-neutral colleges

Leadership by example.  It basically means walking the walk and talking the talk. When it comes to action on climate change, college campuses across the US are attempting to do just that. 

…With the help of a former president.  

The Clinton Climate Initiative is helping colleges and universities to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions with an injection of 1 billion dollars to fund carbon neutral programs.  It’s one component of many in reaching the long-term goal of climate neutrality, but a highly symbolic one.  

The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) is a partnership of 427 like-minded college and university presidents.  From all 50 states, schools as small as Wells College and as large as Arizona State, they attempt to set short and long term goals towards climate neutrality.  

What are the colleges actually doing towards those goals?  Obviously conditions and challenges vary immensely from state to state, much less from Brown University to Lane College. The funding from the Clinton Climate Initiative is available to the ACUPCC to use how they see fit.

The ACUPCC plans on pursuing both short- and long-term projects toward carbon neutrality. That can mean basic infrastructure upgrades, such as retrofitting inefficient buildings.  Or, it can mean embarking on advanced climate change research.  UC San Diego, for example, is examining how cyberinfrastructure can be used in research universities to create carbon-neutral environments. 

Indeed, the carbon neutral college initiative is passing climate change leadership from one former leader to a generation of future leaders.