University of Florida student senate passes ‘green new deal’

In a rebuke to Governor Ron DeSantis’s denialism, the student body calls for campus-wide measures to tackle the climate crisis

The University of Florida student senate voted in favour of a “green new deal” late on Tuesday, becoming the first public university to adopt such a resolution through student government.

The mandate – which was unanimously passed – calls for sweeping campus-wide measures to tackle the climate crisis that include just transition, total divestment from fossil fuels, disclosure of the university’s financial ties within the private sector and a ban on receiving research funding from the fossil fuel industry.

This win by Florida students comes amid ongoing climate denialism in the state. Governor Ron DeSantis has cracked down on free speech at universities and shown support for the burning of fossil fuels. Additionally, the Florida legislature is advancing an energy resources bill that would delete mentions of climate change in the state law.

Cameron Driggers, a first-year University of Florida business administration student and the executive director of Youth Action Fund, called the vote “a stunning rebuke of the ideology of climate denialism that DeSantis has championed”.

“Seeing a huge campus in a red state adopt a ‘green new deal’ is hopefully a sign that this movement is spreading to other universities around the country, and start treating this climate crisis like a crisis that it is,” said Driggers.

Sofia Aviles, a third-year student at the University of Florida and the president of Sunrise Movement Gainesville, said she and her peers were “trying to show the Florida government that despite their efforts, we are an institution backed by science”.

Driggers also noted that the school had received a significant amount of money over the years – specifically, as of June 2022, $2.3bn. That endowment is managed by a private foundation, and the details of where the funds are invested are not publicly disclosed. Students hope this mandate will ensure more transparency around where that money is going.

“It’s a public university, public money, and we don’t even know what it’s being spent on,” Driggers said.

The “green new deal” will now go to the University of Florida’s governing body, the board of trustees, which will meet on 7 March and have a final say in approving the financial portion of the mandate. The resolution also calls for an immediate implementation of the university’s updated climate action plan, which involves curbing emissions from buildings and reduced traffic emissions on campus. Drafted by the university’s office of sustainability, the plan’s approval has been stalled for nearly a year.

“Young people in Florida want to see a future where their social institutions take the climate crisis seriously,” said Jake Lowe of advocacy group Campus Climate Network. “What happens on a college campus has a lot more reach than just that campus community.”

Efforts for climate accountability have been surging on college campuses around the country for the last several years. Students at American University are currently campaigning for a similar “green new deal” that calls for decarbonization and financial transparency. In 2016, the University of Massachusetts became the first major public university to divest its endowment from direct holdings in fossil fuels, and the University of California, San Diego, quickly followed suit, passing a resolution on divestment in 2019. Last September, New York University became one of largest private universities in the US to divest from fossil fuels.

“Science has said for decades that climate change is human caused. This is not even a debate any more,” Aviles added. “And we’re showing the government that we’re going to follow science, and not necessarily what they think should be or should not be in our curriculums or our state laws.”

Cover photo: The University of Florida campus in Gainesville, Florida. Photograph: Allen Creative/Steve Allen/Alamy