Our world is on the brink of ecological collapse. There is consensus within the scientific community that human-induced climate change, produced primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is altering the Earth’s systems as we know them. We are facing more extreme weather, glacial melt, ocean acidification and sea level rise. If we don’t act now to limit warming to 1.5 or 2°C, we might irreversibly shift the possibility of a livable planet for humans within the next century. “By investing in fossil fuels ... we are associated with all the things that the industry is,” Calvin Beauchesne said during a divestment presentation to the Board of Governors in 2014. 

At Trent, student-led divestment campaigns have been active since at least 2014. At the time, Sustainable Trent’s year-long divestment effort attempted to push Trent to divest from the fossil fuel industry, primarily targeting institutional fund investments. These efforts  proved futile, however, and precluded the possibility of Trent becoming the first Canadian university to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry and becoming a climate change pioneer in the academic world.

This comes as Trent’s stubborn relationship with the fossil fuel industry becomes increasingly evident as more palpable and direct forms of funding come to light.

The Sustainable Guyana Program:

In 2019, fossil fuel investment in Trent’s programming was announced with the inauguration of the Sustainable Guyana Program (SGP). SGP is a joint venture between CGX Energy, Frontera Energy Corporation (FEC), the University of Guyana (UoG) and Trent University. 

CGX-FEC invested $5 million (CDN) in the program, which according to the press release, aims to “train and develop a group of future leaders into the next generation of pivotal highly-skilled Guyanaese trainers.” As a partner in the program, the press release goes on to explain, Trent University would receive $3.35 million over five years to fund 12 scholarship awards for UoG employees to pursue their graduate degrees and training at Trent. 

According to the program’s webpage, the SGP was born from the recent partnership between the CGX Energy and Frontera “in a joint commitment to social responsibility, local content and good corporate citizenship.” SGP was “designed to enable the creation of Guyanese Highly Qualified Personnel in the sustainable sectors of the Guyanese economy, who are vested in Guyana’s development.” This is done by funding Guyanese students’ tuition, accommodation, and travel expenses, as well as research project costs. In the end, SGP students are provided with Trent University degrees and the opportunity to continue pursuing academic interests with the ultimate goal of returning home with newly acquired knowledge and sharpened research skill sets. 

In a quest to better understand the inner-workings of the program and the role of the partnered companies, Arthur reached out to associated faculty and enrolled students independently requesting an interview in order to discuss the program’s content, mission and inner-workings. Both parties, however, declined, opting instead for two joint statements—one by the students and another written by faculty. Both statements were eerily similar and disregarded some prominent concerns about the operations of the program. 

As described in a joint statement provided by the SG students, the program is “an opportunity for employees at the University of Guyana to earn graduate-level credentials at Trent University, while enhancing our skill sets, research capacity, and education in non-fossil, sustainable sectors of the Guyanese economy.” 

To date, there are four Ph.D. and three Master’s-level students enrolled under the program. In the statement their research topics are described as “wide-ranging, but all incorporate the interdisciplinary study of sustainability through Trent’s Sustainability Studies, Environmental and Life Sciences, and Interdisciplinary Social Research graduate programs.” 

The program currently lists 13 faculty members, with Dr. Suresh Narine, director of the Trent Centre for Biomaterials Research, listed as the Program Chair. 

Dr. Narine is concurrently serving as the Executive Chairman of CGX Energy - a role he was appointed to on April 14, 2017. He has previously served as the company’s Co-Chairman and Executive Chairman in Guyana since 2013.

The faculty’s joint statement, as formulated by both Dr. Narine and Professor Neil Emery, described the program in a very similar manner to that of the students using similar sentence structures, adjectives and phrases.

In addition to the faculty’s joint statement, two of the seven faculty approached replied to the interview request. These professors, though well known for their work on climate change, sustainability and food systems, were not familiar with the program. Both faculty members also made it clear that though they appeared on SG’s webpage as program supervisors, they had not been contacted after being asked to supervise graduate students from Guyana, and have since not had any further interaction with the program. 

Professor Raul Ponce-Hernandez was the only professor who agreed to an interview with Arthur. Professor Ponce-Hernandez not only emphasized the fact that he had no real or meaningful  connection to the program, but also denied being aware of the funding sources or partnerships with the oil giants. 

Guyana’s Oil boom and the foreign scramble for oil excursions:

Located on the northern coast of South America, the English-speaking country of Guyana possesses significant natural resources. From vast rainforests and a wide range of mineral resources, to rare earths and, most recently discovered, vast reserves of petroleum. These abundant reserves of petroleum have become increasingly sought after, pushing the country into the world’s fourth largest offshore oil producer. According to a World Bank report, the country is expected to have one of the world’s fastest growing economies as well. 

CGX Energy Inc.is widely regarded as Guyana’s pioneering Indigenous oil and gas exploration company, as it primarily focuses on the exploration of oil in the Guyana-Suriname Basin and the development of a deep-water port in Berbice, Guyana. Frontera Energy Corporation, on the other hand, is involved in the exploration, production, development, transportation, storage and sale of oil and natural gas in the broader region of South America. Both CGX and Frontera Energy Corp. are publicly-trading Canadian oil companies. 

Holding up to 78% of outstanding shares, Frontera is considered the parent company of CGX Energy. As a partially Frontera-owned subsidiary, CGX is directly influenced by their business operations. Both companies are also party to a joint-venture offshore exploration project in Guyana’s Corentyne Block, located about 200 km offshore Georgetown, the country’s capital.

Between 2021 and 2022 the Joint Venture made the discovery of a drilling area dubbed the Kawa-1-well, this was the first offshore oil well in the block. Encountering approximately 177 feet (54 meters) of hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs, the Kawa-1 “[added] to the growing success story unfolding in offshore Guyana as the country emerges as a global oil and gas exploration hotspot” as described by Gabriel de Alba, Chairman of Frontera’s board of directors and Co-Chairman of CGX’s board of directors, in a 2022 press release. 

The Wei-1 well is the second exploration well that was planned to be drilled on Corentyne. In January 2023, another Frontera press release announced the Government’s approval of the venture’s Appraisal Plan for the northern section of the Corentyne block. “Wei-1 will appraise both the Kawa-1 discovery as well as explore additional opportunities within the Corentyne block,” Dr. Narine stated in the 2023 press release. 

The bright future that oil money may bring to Guyana is rather uncertain and hotly debated. Activists and political science professors warn of the dangers of oil booms in highly divided countries that suffer from political instability and corruption. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, concerns around the impact of oil wealth in a country marked by deep-seated ethnic and socio-economic divisions are prevalent. Further concerns around the effect Guyana’s oil boom will have on climate change are also being raised.  

FEC is notorious for its human rights abuses directed towards local Indigenous communities, as well as environmental negligence in the South American regions where they operate. With a diversified portfolio that includes 32 exploration and production blocks in the countries of Colombia, Ecuador and Guyana, Frontera has been extensively involved in an array of gross human and environmental rights violations.

On April 1st, 2023 The Globe and Mail publish an investigative piece by Tavia Grant that presented an extensive case against the environmentally and societal destructive legacy of the Canadian extractive industry abroad. “The allegations, from workers, local villagers, community leaders and organizations against Canadian companies, in many cases are grave: killings of Indigenous community members; security forces opening fire on protesters; death threats against local leaders; health impacts from contaminated water; forced labour; and dangerous working conditions,” Grant wrote. 

The abuses committed by FEC against Indigenous communities and the environment are explicitly mentioned. Most evidently seen in the northern region of the Amazon, Frontera’s footprint is one of threatening environmental contamination and abuses against Indigenous rights and livelihoods. Peru’s environmental regulator has recorded that the mid-size explorer has created 113 environmental emergencies in Block 192, an Indigenous territory nearly equivalent in total area to that of Prince Edward Island, the article states. Block 192 is home to 25 Indigenous communities. Aymara Leon Cepeda, an official from Puinamudt, an umbrella organization for various Amazonian Indigenous groups, has specifically called out Frontera for “not responding swiftly” to spills. 

Though not directly linked to Frontera’s operations, a study conducted in 2021 in the same region, a year after the company started operating there, found higher levels of lead in Indigenous communities living at river basins near oil production sites in the territory. The study, which included the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, found that half of the children tested had high blood lead levels. As pointed out in the Globe and Mail’s piece, the young children’s lead levels in the study were 6.5 times higher than those reported for young children in the US between 2013 and 2014. High lead levels puts them at risk for an array of health conditions including neurological impairment, kidney damage, anemia and immunotoxicity.

In Peru alone, between 2017 and 2022, Frontera has been hit with 33 environmental fines from the country’s Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement. In an open letter to Frontera written by Indigenous leaders in the territory, they allege the company’s actions have damaged the lives of nearly 7,000 people, causing “great indignation and discomfort as well as serious concerns due to the continued impact that the fives years of activity has generated in our fragile territories and Indigenous communities.”

It is important to note that the complaints about the contamination and human rights breaches are not solely reserved for Frontera, but rather extend to the Canadian government, given their inability to respond and take appropriate measures against the company’s behaviour. 

Given the Globe and Mail’s investigative piece, concerns on the program’s funding were also made clear in correspondence sent by Arthur, making explicit mention of the investigative article and Frontera’s corporate abuse in Peru, as well as its human and environmental rights abuses in other South American regions. 

When asked for an interview after the release of the Globe and Mail’s reporting to learn more about the program and how it seeks to promote sustainability in relation to possible environmental and human rights concerns—both at Trent and at home—Suresh Narine and Neil Emery simply provided Frontera’s public statement on the matter. The email states, “Regarding the question you pose on the reporting by the Globe and Mail, we cannot speak for the company. Frontera's public statement on the matter has been such:

‘Frontera is committed to conducting business safely and in a socially, environmentally and ethically responsible manner. A relinquishment and abandonment plan for the block has been coordinated with the government of Peru and with all the stakeholders involved, including local communities in the area. Frontera Energy is honoring its contractual commitments and will continue to comply with its outstanding social and environmental obligations.’”

Arthur reached out once more after the joint response. Arthur’s second attempt at an interview to ascertain concerns of both staff and students about the allegations the company is facing as well as the Dr. Narine’s potential conflicts of interest —given high-ranking positions both at Trent and CGX— was briefly answered, almost two weeks after the email was sent. 

According to Dr. Suresh Narine and Dr. Neil Emery “Checks and balances in place at the University provide a process that examines projects and rules out issues of conflict of interest prior to approval.” The email goes on to state that, “Given the agreements and procedures in place, no conflict of interest exists between Prof. Narine’s role in the Sustainable Guyana program and his role with CGX Energy Inc.” 

Dr. Narine’s conflict of interests became an issue of concern as Arthur learned about his salary as well as the amount of shares he owns at CGX. According to the company’s management circular proxy charts, in 2021, Dr. Narine made $678,000 CAD in compensation for his role as Executive Chairman (he made 1.4 million in 2020, and 1.8 million in 2019 the year that the Agreement between the 4 parties took hold). Dr. Narine also held 325,000 exercised share options in the company, and a total value of 8.2 million dollars in unexercised share options as of 2021. 

Problematizing oil money at Trent:

There is no question that the program offers a unique opportunity for the development of the Guyanese workforce and economy through an attempt to retain high-skilled individuals in the country, and promote exceptional academic mentors and researchers. 

The problem is the program’s sponsors, whose involvement may raise several questions including the actual motives behind their investing. According to an article by  The Guardian, in the United States, from 2010 to 2020, six fossil fuel companies funneled more than $700 million in research funding to 27 america universities. The funding by fossil fuel companies to post-secondary institutions and research projects has major implications in terms of research agendas, findings and recommendations that can ultimately benefit them, according to a research done by the think tank Data for Progress and the nonprofit Fossil-Free Research. 

Universities are important institutions for the production of knowledge and cultural preservation. Universities’ funders not only determine research topics, but also shape research questions and influence research conclusions while concurrently gaining credibility from the university’s name. Trent University’s conscious and direct collaboration with major fossil fuel industry companies, while perhaps not a direct conflict of interest, does raise many questions about the impartiality of the research being conducted. 

This is especially true when divestment efforts on behalf of and from the student body have been so prevalent and can be understood as a violation of the core social and academic principles which Trent ostensibly stands for. The fact that fossil fuel companies with a well-noted record of human and environmental rights abuses are being applauded for their investor role in a program that has been “designed to enhance Guyana’s environmental, economic, social and cultural sustainability” in non-fossil and sustainable areas, as described by Dr. Narine raises red flags about Trent’s priorities as a research institution. 

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