Royal Society and academics clash over influence of oil and gas industry

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A clash between Britain’s 363-year-old Royal Society and more than 2,000 UK academics has escalated over the national academy of scientists’ refusal to attribute the role of oil and gas companies in climate change.

The academics had expressed their concerns about the influence of fossil fuel companies on scientific research in a letter last year to the Royal Society, founded in 1660 as a fellowship that included the likes of Isaac Newton.

But the Royal Society has now rebuffed their request to issue an “unambiguous statement about the culpability of the fossil fuel industry in driving the climate crisis”.

Treasurer Jonathan Keating wrote in reply last week that it would “not be appropriate” to do so, as there was a need for “multiple actors” to engage with the complexity of the climate crisis.

The academics’ concerns about the influence of oil and gas companies extend to separate allegations that ties to BP were not disclosed by a Cambridge professor in a Royal Society policy briefing document produced by a working group that he chaired in 2022.

Professor Andy Woods held the title of head of the BP Institute, a research arm that it funds, which was renamed the Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows by Cambridge last year. He also has the formal title of BP professor, a position endowed by the oil and gas company. These affiliations were not included in the reference in the document.

The Royal Society briefing document called for an “enormous and continued investment” into geological carbon capture and storage, a technology promoted by the fossil fuel industry as a way to keep expanding while storing the emissions.

A CO₂ storage adviser to BP and a director for CO₂ storage at the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate also contributed to the report.

Woods’s expertise in geophysical fluid flows and the BP affiliation are listed elsewhere by the Royal Society in its fellowship directory.

BP and Woods did not respond to a request for comment. The Royal Society said the document gave “clear affiliations” for contributors and that it publishes a wide range of research.

The tensions reflect the discord in academia about funding or participation in research by oil and gas companies, as well as rising activism on campuses among the student body and staff.

The Royal Society’s decision not to call out the industry was described as “moral cowardice” by James Dyke, earth system science professor at Exeter university.

Another signatory to the original letter, Bill McGuire, professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, said it was “mind-boggling” that a respected scientific organisation would not attribute the role of fossil fuel groups in climate change.

The student-led Oxford Climate Society has also targeted the author of a set of green principles used by Oxford university to help guide decisions on whether to invest in or receive grants from oil and gas companies.

Under freedom of information provisions, the student campaigners identified Myles Allen, the university’s head of atmospheric, oceanic and planetary physics, as having had 18 meetings where a representative was present from one of the major oil and gas groups, including either BP, Shell, Exxon or Equinor.

Those meetings in 2021 and 2022 included five occasions organised by Shell, three of which focused on the oil and gas group’s strategy and climate scenarios, according to the freedom of information response.

Allen, who was head of the Oxford Net Zero research initiative until earlier this year, told the Financial Times he had used the meetings to highlight the need for fossil fuel companies to pay for carbon capture and storage technologies.

It is a solution to the reduction of future carbon dioxide emissions that he has long advocated. “We all have a duty to help the fossil fuel industry not make the problem worse but to fix it,” he said.

Oxford said its “partnerships and collaborations with industry” allow for research on pressing global issues, including climate-related ones.

The campaigners called on Oxford to conduct an independent assessment about its approach to fossil fuel sector donations and investment. Cambridge university in March temporarily stopped accepting grants and donations from the sector in response to similar concerns.