Latest News on Divestment from Fossil Fuels

The international campaign to divest from the Top 200 fossil fuels continues to make waves across the globe. A summary of recent news is below. The campaign has already spread to over 400 colleges, cities, and religious institutions in the United...

November 8, 2013 | Source: Common Dreams | by Daniel Kessler

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Environment and Climate Resource Center page.

The international campaign to divest from the Top 200 fossil fuels continues to make waves across the globe. A summary of recent news is below. The campaign has already spread to over 400 colleges, cities, and religious institutions in the United States and is growing quickly in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and across Europe, where the Fossil Free Europe tour just concluded. Follow the campaign at gofossilfree.org.

Generation Foundation report warns of stranded carbon assets

On October 30, The Generation Foundation released a report on investor risk from stranded carbon assets and how this risk should be incorporated into investment analyses. Al Gore and London based asset manager David Blood described the report’s findings and compared the carbon bubble to the housing bubble in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “That is exactly what is happening with the subprime carbon asset bubble: It is still growing because most market participants are mistakenly treating carbon risk as an uncertainty, and are thus failing to incorporate it in investment analyses. By overlooking a known material-risk factor, investors are exposing their portfolios to an externality that should be integrated into the capital allocation process.”

Oxford study on growing fossil fuel divestment campaign says it’s experiencing the fastest growth in recent times

On October 7, the University of Oxford released a new report that found that the fossil fuel divestment campaign is growing faster than any previous divestment effort. “Stigmatisation poses a far-reaching threat to fossil fuel companies – any direct impacts of divestment pale in comparison,” said Ben Caldecott, a research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, and an author of the report. “In every case we reviewed, divestment campaigns were successful in lobbying for restrictive legislation.”