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Author Topic: Divest from fossil fuels; Resources  (Read 1895 times)

anthropocene

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Divest from fossil fuels; Resources
« on: February 21, 2015, 12:23:08 PM »
My company pension scheme has a stakeholders meeting next week. I plan to make a proposal to that meeting that the pension fund divest all of its money from fossil fuel related stocks. There may be others here who have or are planning to do something similar. It would be good to have a single thread holding useful links to obtain data when preparing proposals of this type. Does anybody know good links? The more up to date the better. What would be useful would be following:

1) Economic studies showing how risky an investment in fossil fuel stocks is. The more economically respectable the institution and/or conservative writing the report the better. Making a good economic case must be the best way to produce a positive result at any meeting. If the report is recent enough to include the recent fall in oil price and therefore fall in oil stocks that would be even better.

2)Pension funds (being shareholders) should hold directors to account for irresponsible actions.  Reports on how fossil fuel companies are being reckless with shareholder's money re: spending billions exploring for oil which is likely to be worthless.

3) A concise summary of why it is a moral responsibility for investors to divest (aimed at a typical pension meeting crowd).

4) Examples of other pension funds and/or financial institutions divesting.

5) Anything else I missed?



Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Divest from fossil fuels; Resources
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2019, 08:41:15 PM »
But getting away from fossil fuels is hard.
Why climate change is so hard to tackle: Our stubborn energy system
https://www.axios.com/why-climate-change-is-so-hard-to-tackle-our-stubborn-energy-system-6c8fc596-3c47-477a-82aa-cd00f063c9a0.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
Quote
But a lot more is driving fossil fuels’ dominance than just corporate influence on government. Oil, natural gas and coal provide immense benefits to society — even though they also have immense environmental costs.

The chemical makeup of the fuels make them especially good at a lot of things, including industrial processes like making plastics. Renewables or other resources cannot easily replace that (even though big brands, like Legos, are trying).
"Some sectors, such as transportation and petrochemicals [plastics], almost completely rely on one single fuel, in this case oil,” said Fatih Birol, IEA executive director. Nonetheless, Birol said fossil-fuel consumption subsidies that totaled $400 billion in 2018 are providing an “unfair advantage” to those fuels.
Our dependence on fossil fuels is often likened to that of cigarette smoking, but the analogy doesn’t hold up.

Smoking is an unhealthy habit some people choose to engage in, and if they choose, they can try to kick that addiction without changing their life.
Fossil fuels are the foundation of our global economy, and it’s nearly impossible to go about our lives without using them in some form.