Report after report has shown that investing in clean energy, efficiency, and other sustainable technologies can be competitive
with fossil fuels investments (1).
Yet while money may be flowing away from
many fossil fuel investments, investing in solar projects has traditionally been somewhat cumbersome — requiring significant capital, legal expertise, and industry connections.
And so here you have a situation where you've got $ 4 billion of energy and
fossil fuel investment on a floodplain in the era of climate change.
Individuals may take action, and call on world leaders to divest from
fossil fuel investments by joining the «Fossil Free» and «Stop Funding Fossils» movements online.
New York City announced it filed a multibillion dollar lawsuit against five top oil companies, citing their «contributions to global warming,» as it said it would
divest fossil fuel investments from its $ 189 billion public pension funds over the next five years.
But on Thursday, Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust released a long and reasoned explanation of why the school will not
remove fossil fuel investments from its portfolio.
Previous Carbon Tracker research has shown how the rapid growth of clean technologies is undermining the business case
for fossil fuel investment irrespective of climate targets.
A script pulled out the direct
fossil fuel investments using the Carbon Underground 200 that identifies the top 100 public coal companies globally and the top 100 public oil and gas companies globally, ranked by the potential carbon emissions content of their proven reserves.
Over the past legislative session, the issue of divesting state pension funds of
fossil fuel investments received considerable debate both in the State House and around Vermont.
Recently, after over five years of community campaigning for New York to divest from fossil fuels, City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Governor Andrew Cuomo each released separate proposals to freeze all
current fossil fuel investments, divest New York's public pension -LSB-...]
Growing recognition of climate change's economic threat has not stymied fossil fuel investments
[Insert, Oct. 15, 9:29 p.m. Two leaders of the student movement
against fossil fuel investments at Harvard, Chloe Maxmin and Hannah Borowsky, have challenged Faust's decision.
Maintaining the momentum, and not forgetting where we started out, we rejoined with our Divest London friends at the beginning of 2016 with a sea - shanty / flooding themed event at City Hall, and celebrated a short while later when all four leading candidates for Mayor of London committed to work to phase out London -
wide fossil fuel investments.
We need to sustainability proof the future EU budget and make it serve the public good, promote social inclusion and strengthen European values, instead of wasting taxpayers» money on
dirty fossil fuel investments, harmful and outdated farming practices, and large scale infrastructure projects that damage our health, destroy our environment, and jeopardise the safety and prosperity of our children.
«The 124 - mile Constitution pipeline, planned to run through five counties and two states, and hundreds of waterways is the sort of
massive fossil fuel investment that would have locked our region into continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels and irreparably damaged precious water resources at a time when we need instead to be protecting these resources and speeding the transition to 100 percent renewable energy for all.
In addition to this effort, I authored the legislation creating the District's first Climate Change and Resiliency Commission; I led the fight to have the District's retirement and pension funds divest from carbon and
fossil fuel investment holdings; I wrote several bills to expand opportunities for solar installation; and I led the effort to name 2018 as the Year of the Anacostia River to celebrate and bring attention to the river on the eastern half of our city.
Meanwhile, IRENA estimates that the overall stranded asset risk doubles to more than $ 20tn if rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector is delayed to 2030 and
fossil fuel investments continue to rise.
Says the report: «Increasingly, worldwide regulations are
leaving fossil fuel investments as stranded assets with pension funds heeding the call to divest from fossil fuels and invest in green technologies.
Super funds and banks are becoming under increased pressure to divest thermal coal and
other fossil fuel investments and account for their lending and direct equity portfolios.
A video summarizing the new IEA report provides a quick overview of a dramatic drop in
fossil fuel investment which accounted for virtually all of the global spending decrease since 2014.
«Failure to do so, can have serious financial consequences on the viability of such projects,» the company stated, although «those [underwriters] with
large fossil fuel investments would never be our first choice.»
The Labour, Lib Dem, and Green manifestos are, if anything, even more encouraging for the green economy, promising a faster pace of decarbonisation, generally higher levels of investment in clean technologies, and a more responsible approach to
curbing fossil fuel investment, most notably through a ban on fracking.
Still, with an increasing number of economists warning of
fossil fuel investments becoming «stranded assets», there's a sound economic case to be made for divestment.
I simply reflected what a number of other organisations have been promoting about sounding a note of caution internationally on the need to carefully
consider fossil fuel investment in the light of their life - cycle carbon emissions.»
Recent reports from Impax Asset Management (PDF), MSCI (PDF) and Aperio Group (PDF) support the claim that
removing fossil fuel investments from portfolios has a negligible impact.
The implications of all this however are not just the risks
for fossil fuel investments but the enormous upside inherent in the transition to the new energy economy.
NEW YORK (Reuters)- New York City announced on Wednesday that it filed a multibillion dollar lawsuit against five top oil companies, citing their «contributions to global warming,» as it said it would
divest fossil fuel investments from its $ 189 billion public pension funds over the next five years.
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer say the divestment of roughly $ 5 billion in
fossil fuel investments out of a total of $ 189 billion over five NYC pension funds is the largest of any municipality in the United States to date.