Studenten bezetten gebouw UvA

“Wij zijn van plan om hier zolang als nodig te blijven!”, laten de actievoerders weten op hun website professor protest.

Steun
De bezetting zal geen dagen duren. De Universiteit van Amsterdam ‘steunt het geluid tegen de bezuinigingen op hoger onderwijs, maar wijst het blokkeren van onderwijs af’, twittert de UvA. Volgens een woordvoerder hinderen de studenten het onderwijs en zal de universiteit uiteindelijk aangifte doen van huisvredebreuk.

Debatteren
De studenten roepen staatssecretaris Halbe Zijlstra op om te debatteren over de bezuinigingen en de rol van universiteiten, maar ze leggen niet uit waarom ze voor zo’n debat een bezetting nodig achten.

“Look over there, Van Basten bought that house. And Cruyff has a house around the corner.” With the enthusiasm of a school boy football fan, world-renowned MIT researcher and advisor to US President Barack Obama, Professor Ernest Moniz, points out the homes of famous Dutch footballers in Amsterdam, as a bus takes him across the city and on to TU Delft, where he was invited by the Delft Energy Initiative (DEI) to deliver a lecture on climate problems and energy universities of the future. The lecture schedule also includes a debate with Delft’s energy ambassador, Ivo Opstelten. 
The DEI is modelled on the longer established, ‘big brother’ MIT Energy Initiative, of which Moniz is the director, as well as serving on president Obama’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.
“Very nice that you copied us,” says Moniz, grinning. One aspect the TU hasn’t copied from MIT is the role of ‘energy ambassador’. “An energy ambassador, what’s that?” Moniz asks, of a concept in which a prominent Dutch establishment figure, like Opstelten (the former mayor Rotterdam), who has no deep professional knowledge of energy issues, serves as the ambassadorial face of TU Delft’s energy research.

You’re on record as saying the Copenhagen climate negotiations were successful.
“Yes Copenhagen was a step forward, although this might be inflaming for you to hear in Europe. For one, Copenhagen put a strong exclamation point behind the fact that the UN will not be the main venue where solutions will be negotiated. I’m an old, gnarled realist. How can you expect 196 countries to come to an agreement? And why should they? Twenty countries contribute about ninety percent to the carbon dioxide emissions. It’s absurd to ask the very underdeveloped countries to participate in the reduction of C02 emission. The chief venue for
negotiations should be the major polluters. Other countries can join the venue, or not. That doesn’t really matter.”

But what progress was actually made in Copenhagen?
“Kyoto created a bad precedence. It created a distinction between those who did or did not sign the treaty: black and white. China, Brazil, India, South Africa and the US have laid down new building blocks on the table; they called for a set of voluntary carbon reduction commitments.
“Of course it’s true that the commitments are voluntary. China says it’ll lower its carbon intensity by forty percent, if the US also meets its goals. And the US says it will reduce its carbon emission if the US Senate agrees.”

It’s not enough.
“I hate to disappoint the youth. I used to be idealistic. Now I’m pragmatic. The energy demand of developing countries will grow strongly these coming decades, and they have a legitimate demand for energy. At the same time we must respond to the threat of climate change. We therefore must make the energy industry less carbon intensive. Now, if the pledges are carried out – a big ‘if’ – then we’ll see a flattening of CO2 emissions this decade. Would I like more? Yeah. But this is pretty good, too. It’s a shift from talk to action.”

What role can universities play in cleaning up energy?
“Universities must develop cutting edge technology. Moreover, they must focus on energy cost-reductions. Energy can’t be compared to a device, like a telephone. Energy is a commodity. Universities must be more conscious of this. Upscaling technologies to get the price down is vital for commodities. Universities must be aware of this and try to create spin-offs in partnership with companies.”

In New Scientist, you said that the US government must start building nuclear reactors as soon as possible.
“Ha, that’s a political non-starter in Holland, isn’t it?
But nuclear power would make a lot of sense in Holland. It’s a compact energy source. And it’s a hard business to meet carbon reduction goals. One shouldn’t take options off the table because of emotional reasons. But again, I’m no proponent of any particular technique. Yet I don’t see how we can make it
without nuclear energy. Solar energy is very promising, but it’s still way off. And I don’t see offshore wind energy as a solution either.
“The reason why I said the US government must invest in nuclear technology is because no new reactors have been built in the US since 1973. Companies that now want to be the first in doing this face tremendous financial risk. The government should take the lead in building the first five or six modern reactors, while simultaneously investing in solar-energy, wind-energy and energy-saving technologies, like micro combined heat and power fuel cell for houses.”

You serve on Obama’s advisory board for science and technology. Is that not frustrating, as geopolitical arguments always trump purely scientific ones? 
“No, it’s not frustrating. It’s my job to provide scientific advice, not political advice. All I can ask is that I’m being listened to. And that happens. But of course there are disappointing moments. I’d have liked to have seen a good cap and trade climate bill [called UScap – ed.] passed recently, but it didn’t happen. Instead, we have a bill about incentives to stimulate clean energy. I don’t know of any bill more complicated than UScap. We’ll get back to it in three years time.”

Roulette
During his lecture, Moniz displayed two roulette wheels, on which the odds of temperature rise in 2100 varied from 2 to 7 °C. “We also will not achieve the goal of remaining under 445 ppm C02 equivalents [ppm stands for ‘parts per million’, a measurement for the amount of CO2 molecules per million molecules in the atmosphere – ed.] and thereby ensuring the temperature on Earth rises by only a maximum of 2 °C,” Moniz says.
“But if we really do our best, we could prevent us from going above 650 ppm. If we spin this wheel, then you’ll see that the odds that it will only become 2 °C warmer are not so fantastic. But the chance of a catastrophic temperature rise of 6 to 7 °C is also very small. On the other wheel – which represents a world without a global climate policy – the odds of reaching that 6 or 7 °C are not trivial. And that is totally unacceptable.”