2025-11-12 12:04:35 -0500
To: University of New Mexico Board of Regents and President Garnett Stokes
UNM Follow Through With Climate Commitments!
To the University of New Mexico Board of Regents and President Garnett Stokes:
We, the undersigned students, faculty, alumni, staff, and community members, urgently call on you to take clear, immediate, and effective action to address the rapidly worsening climate crisis to confront its impacts on our university, our state, and our future.
The evidence is undeniable. New Mexico is already living through the consequences of climate chaos—historic drought, deadly wildfires, extreme heat, and vanishing water supplies. These impacts aren’t distant projections–they are disrupting lives, threatening public health, and deepening inequalities across our communities.
We are calling for accountability as UNM released its first Climate Action Plan in 2009, with a goal of reducing 80% of 2006-level emissions by 2030. However, recent inventories show only an 11% reduction, demonstrating that UNM is not on track to meeting its original goal.
The UNM Sustainability Strategic Plan launched in 2025 has an updated goal of a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030. The university must stay on track or surpass this goal to contribute to climate targets of limiting warming on Earth at 1.5°C or well below 2°C, as to avoid the most severe and irreversible impacts of the climate crisis.
Therefore, we urge you to:
1. Successfully execute the Sustainability Strategic Plan and achieve at minimum, a 45% reduction in campus emissions by 2030. As outlined in the plan, this will be achieved primarily through a transition of the campus operations to renewable energy. We emphasize the importance of prioritizing energy sources with the least extractive impacts to Indigenous and frontline communities and lands.
2. Create a formal plan and timeline to achieve Carbon Neutrality, no later than 2050, including yearly progress reports from the Office of Sustainability. Within this plan, we expect you to include the full divestment of the University's holdings in the fossil fuel industry. Additionally, in mitigating remaining emissions, we encourage you to invest into maintaining and expanding local carbon sinks (campus arboretums, Rio Grande Bosque, etc.) rather than relying on market-based mechanisms, such as carbon credits.
3. Establish and maintain a permanent Sustainability Advisory Council and Sustainability Corps by Fall 2026 that ensures involvement of students, community members, staff, faculty, alumni, and experts in climate-related decision making processes and advocacy work.
4. Protect and Uplift Student Organizing and Free Speech, including the members of UNM Leaders for Environmental Action and Foresight (LEAF), the Sustainable Design Collective (SDC), Lobo Gardens Club, UNM for Justice in Palestine (UNM4JP), Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), Kiva Club, Students Demand Action, and other student activist groups as an essential component of UNM’s climate response. As a first step, we urge you to preemptively reject the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, and any future attempts that would limit student organizing and free speech on campus.
1. Successfully execute the Sustainability Strategic Plan and achieve at minimum, a 45% reduction in campus emissions by 2030. As outlined in the plan, this will be achieved primarily through a transition of the campus operations to renewable energy. We emphasize the importance of prioritizing energy sources with the least extractive impacts to Indigenous and frontline communities and lands.
2. Create a formal plan and timeline to achieve Carbon Neutrality, no later than 2050, including yearly progress reports from the Office of Sustainability. Within this plan, we expect you to include the full divestment of the University's holdings in the fossil fuel industry. Additionally, in mitigating remaining emissions, we encourage you to invest into maintaining and expanding local carbon sinks (campus arboretums, Rio Grande Bosque, etc.) rather than relying on market-based mechanisms, such as carbon credits.
3. Establish and maintain a permanent Sustainability Advisory Council and Sustainability Corps by Fall 2026 that ensures involvement of students, community members, staff, faculty, alumni, and experts in climate-related decision making processes and advocacy work.
4. Protect and Uplift Student Organizing and Free Speech, including the members of UNM Leaders for Environmental Action and Foresight (LEAF), the Sustainable Design Collective (SDC), Lobo Gardens Club, UNM for Justice in Palestine (UNM4JP), Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), Kiva Club, Students Demand Action, and other student activist groups as an essential component of UNM’s climate response. As a first step, we urge you to preemptively reject the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, and any future attempts that would limit student organizing and free speech on campus.
We recognize that decarbonizing an institution as large as UNM requires resources, coordination, and long-term planning while paying close attention to environmental justice issues in the process.
However, we believe as the flagship public university in New Mexico, UNM has a profound responsibility—not only to educate but to lead. The actions you take will define whether our institution is a beacon of justice and sustainability or a bystander in the face of crisis.
This is a pivotal moment. The decisions you make today will shape the world we inherit tomorrow. We do not have the luxury of delay.
The climate emergency is here—and so are we.
With hope and urgency,
The undersigned students, faculty, alumni, and community members
Why is this important?
The climate crisis is not a distant threat—it’s already reshaping our lives here in New Mexico. Our rivers are drying, our skies are thick with wildfire smoke, and our communities—especially rural, Indigenous, and low-income communities—are paying the highest price. As students at the University of New Mexico, we are not immune to these impacts. We breathe the same air, drink the same water, and live in the same heat.
UNM is supposed to be a place of learning, leadership, and vision. But how can our university prepare students for the future while ignoring the single greatest threat to our generation?
Staying on track with climate commitments will prove that the University is treating the climate crisis with the urgency it deserves while ensuring that students have a real voice in shaping a just and sustainable future.
This campaign is about integrity. It’s about justice. And it’s about survival.
When students, faculty, alumni, and community members come together, we can push institutions to change. We’ve seen it happen before, and we can do it again. Your voice, your name, your presence in this movement sends a powerful message: that UNM cannot sit on the sidelines any longer.
Whether you're a student living through the heat, a faculty member concerned about the future of education, or a community member fighting for clean air and water—this is your fight too.
By joining this campaign, you’re standing up for climate justice, for youth leadership, and for a university that aligns its actions with its values. You’re helping build a campus that invests in life, not fossil fuels. A campus that centers sustainability, equity, and community—not corporate interests and empty promises.
This is our campus. This is our climate. This is our moment. Join us—and help make history at UNM.