The decision to bar Andreas Malm from entering the UK is farcical and chilling

Dr Ahmad Elabbar reflects on what such a decision means for academics who are working on today’s most difficult and urgent topics

UK higher education is in a confusing and fraught enough state without the government banning distinguished authors on our reading lists such as Andreas Malm (Climate academic Andreas Malm barred from entering UK, 30 October).

Last Thursday I gave a lecture on negative emissions and geoengineering, and recommended The Long Heat, which Malm co-authored with Wim Carton, to my students.

The recommendation was obviously not meant as an endorsement of Malm’s position in that book, or of any of his views – Malm is a challenging author who holds controversial positions on a range of issues. But he is without a doubt one of the world’s leading environmental historians and scholars of climate change. His books are on my reading lists, and those of many of my colleagues.

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone working on climate change today who hasn’t, in one way or another, engaged with his work. A ban on his entry to the UK is farcical, and raises chilling prospects for all academics working on today’s most difficult and urgent topics. Dr Ahmad Elabbar University of Cambridge