Movement Profile
Extreme weather events in Europe such as the floods in the UK this winter serve as stark reminders that we need to act now to avert climate catastrophe. Governments have committed to limiting global warming below two degrees Celsius, which scientists define as the tipping point that would set us on a path to climate catastrophe.
To stay within the two-degree limit, we can roughly emit another 500 gigatons of carbon dioxide. However, the fossil fuel industry currently has 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide in their reserves – five times more than is considered safe. This means that close to 80 percent of the reserves of the fossil fuel industry need to stay underground.
The Fossil Free divestment movement aims to weaken the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on politics. Public institutions such as universities, municipalities, religious institutions and pension funds are responsible to look out for the public good and are directly accountable to citizens. Many of these institutions however support the fossil fuel industry whose business model is based on wrecking our future. In the past, public institutions have divested from rogue industries like tobacco and immoral regimes such as Apartheid South Africa. Now it is time to divest from fossil fuels.
If it is wrong to wreck the climate, then it is wrong to profit from that wreckage
The Fossil Free campaign demands that public institutions exercise responsible stewardship of the public funds with which they are entrusted. It demands that these institutions freeze new investments in fossil fuel companies and over five years phase out existing investments – whether in stocks, bonds or funds – that support fossil fuel companies.
Since 350.org launched the divestment campaign in the autumn of 2012, the movement has spread to over 500 universities, cities, states and religious institutions across the United States, Australia, Canada and Europe, with dozens of institutions already committing to divest. A recent study by the University of Oxford included that the fossil fuel divestment movement is growing faster than any previous divestment campaign.
The movement is making an impact in the financial community as well. Most recently 70 global investors, managing over €2.2 trillion of assets, have demanded that the oil, gas and coal companies assess the risks that climate change poses to their business plans. Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Christiana Figueres and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim also endorsed the campaign earlier this year by joining the voices calling on investors to get out of high carbon assets.
European citizens hold public institutions to account
In Europe, the first Fossil Free campaigns kicked off in autumn 2013. Now a number of local campaigns are well underway. In Sweden for example, students of the University of Gothenburg are demanding that their university live up to its stated commitment to sustainability and take a clear stand for the future of its students by phasing out investments in fossil fuels. The university currently invests in funds that support fossil fuel corporations such as Exxon Mobil.
The environmental department of the university welcomed the students’ initiative and stated in a press interview that the university would develop a plan for divestment if the call was supported by 1,000 students. The Fossil Free campaigners happily took on the challenge. They publicised the statement in an article in the student newspaper and published an opinion piece in Göteborgs-Posten, a major daily newspaper in Sweden. The petition is growing rapidly and the students expect to get back to the university with 1,000 signatures within a few weeks.
Similarly in Norway, students at the University of Bergen challenge the sponsorship agreement with Statoil, which allows the Norwegian oil company to have a say in the institution’s research activities and curricula. The students call on their university as a public institution to align its teaching and research activities with the target of limiting global warming below two degrees – the target Norway committed to. The campaigners have started a petition asking the university to stop the sponsorship agreement and become fossil free. Activities like these have contributed to a public debate that has led the Norwegian Parliament to set up an expert group to look into divestment for the Norwegian oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.
In the Netherlands, Fossil Free groups have also started taking on cities. The small town of Boxtel is the first municipality in Europe to go fossil free. After citizens mobilised against hydraulic fracturing in the area, the municipality banned fracking. From there the local administration quickly decided to divest from fossil fuels as well. Boxtel is now actively working with civil society groups to convince other cities in the Dutch frack-free network to divest from fossil fuels too. Additionally, campaigners are contacting cities to request information on their investments and demand that they get rid of any funds linked to fossil fuels.
350.org is encouraging citizens and institutions across Europe to join the Fossil Free divestment movement. The strength of the campaign lies in its replicability. Everyone has an institution in their community that is in some way connected to or actively supporting the continued extraction of fossil fuels. Anyone is free to start their own divestment campaign and can draw on individual support and materials such as a resource pack to help get a campaign off the ground. For more information, to learn about existing campaigns or start a new campaign, go here.
Tags: Movement Profile