<
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-powerful-new-financial-argument-for-fossil-fuel-divestment>
"In a few months, a small British financial think tank will mark the tenth
anniversary of the publication of a landmark research report that helped launch
the global fossil-fuel-divestment movement. As that celebration takes place,
another seminal report—this one obtained under the Freedom of Information Act
from the world’s largest investment house—closes the loop on one of the key
arguments of that decade-long fight. It definitively shows that the firms that
joined that divestment effort have profited not only morally but also
financially.
The original report, from the London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative, found
something stark: the world’s fossil-fuel companies had five times more carbon
in their reserves than scientists thought we could burn and stay within any
sane temperature target. The numbers meant that, if those companies carried out
their business plans, the planet would overheat. At the time, I discussed the
report with Naomi Klein, who, like me, had been a college student when
divestment campaigns helped undercut corporate support for apartheid, and to us
this seemed a similar fight; indeed, efforts were already under way at a few
scattered places like Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania. In July, 2012, I
published an article in
Rolling Stone calling for a broader, large-scale
campaign, and, over the next few years, helped organize roadshows here and
abroad. Today, portfolios and endowments have committed to divest nearly
fifteen trillion dollars; the most recent converts, the University of Michigan
and Amherst College, made the pledge in the last week."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
