South African universities, particularly Wits, lack transparency and independence because of the fossil fuel industry's influence through funding, research partnerships and investments. They need to disclose industry ties, divest from fossil fuels and champion a just transition to clean energy.

Professor Imraan Valodia, the Wits Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate Change, Sustainability and Inequality, has recently mounted a campaign of articles strongly disagreeing with our Carbon Captured? report, our initial attempt at outlining the various ways in which SA academia - like much of the rest of our society - is unduly influenced by the fossil fuel industry.

Valodia, and I have spoken once face to face, and we've been in occasional email contact since 2022. He says: "Universities should welcome scrutiny of the choices they make and the partnerships they enter into. They should be transparent, accountable and open to criticism."

But he has not provided Wits' detailed Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies, as we have requested, and though he himself proposed a public panel on divestment at Wits in 2022, his enthusiasm seemed to ebb, and my last of several emails on the subject in 2024 went unanswered.

Read more Fuel's errand: Global South universities' role in the Just Transition can't be about divestment July 16, 2026 Why should you care about this? Well, it's not an academic issue. It's an argument between those of us who want our country and world to have...