We write as senior academics at the University of Glasgow who actively research the decarbonisation of energy to deplore the decision of our university court to divest from fossil fuels (Report, 9 October). The courts position is vacuous posturing, since alternatives to fossil fuels are not yet available at scale for heat and transport, or for electricity production on demand. Indeed, our university has just committed itself to a new gas-fired campus heating system, not least because the only current renewable alternative (biomass) had a far poorer environmental profile. The skills and facilities of the hydrocarbons sector many of whom are our alumni are indispensable to the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS), without which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considers there is no chance of the world achieving emissions reduction targets. CCS also offers the only sizeable prospect for actively stripping greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Moreover, most food consumed in Europe today relies on nitrogen produced from hydrocarbons and they are also the raw materials for the vast array of plastics our society demands many of which can lock up fossil carbon for centuries. Again, no alternatives yet exist at scale. To pretend otherwise is intellectually dishonest.