March 12, 2015

Oxford University divestment decision imminent

Over 500 alumni pledge to withhold donations over fossil fuel investments

Oxford, UK – On Monday 16th March, the University of Oxford is due to decide on fossil fuel divestment. The decision will be made in the morning at in the universities highest decision making body; University Council and could see the university divesting from companies involved in the extraction of coal and tar-sands. Students have been campaigning on the issue for over a year, lobbying the University to pull its investments fossil fuel companies.

Miriam Chapman, student campaigner: ‘This is big. This decision could make climate history. Oxford University needs to hear the voices of its students, academics and alumni calling for action on climate change, and an end to investment in fossil fuels!’

The University’s endowment was worth around £3.8 billion,  41% of UK universities’ total endowment wealth. Over the last five years the university has made steps to divest from arms manufacturing companies on ethical grounds, although only for directly owned shares. The recommendations made by the Oxford University Fossil Free campaign consist of four complementary steps to full divestment, which the University may also be considering as independent measures: to evaluate the carbon risk across their portfolio; to move from high-carbon assets to low-carbon alternatives; to cut direct investments in coal and tar sands oil; and to engage with policy makers, financial regulators and corporate management.

The campaign has gathered support from across students, academics and alumni with the student union (OUSU) endorsing divestment, 29 college common rooms voting to support divestment, and over 100 academics[1] signing an open letter calling for action from the University. Further, to coincide with University Council meeting to decide on divestment, over 500 alumni have pledged to withhold donations to Oxford until the University divests[2]. Among these alumni are George Monbiot (journalist and activist), Jeremy Leggett (renewable energy entrepreneur) and Ricken Patel (founder of Avaaz).

Jeremy Leggett: I don’t think universities should be training young people to craft a viable civilisation with one hand and bankroll its sabotage with the other.’

Fossil Fuel Divestment is the fastest-growing divestment movement in history[3], and is continuing to gain momentum. Around 200 institutions globally, with a combined asset size of over $50 billion, have committed to divest, including the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, the British Medical Association, Stanford University and the World Council of Churches.

In the past twelve months students in the People & Planet network have launched over 60 Fossil Free campaigns across the UK, engaging over 25,000 students. Last summer the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) become the first UK university to take action, freezing new investments in the fossil fuel industry.  The Universities of Glasgow became the first university in Europe to divest, committing to remove £18 million, and the University of Bedfordshire recently formalised a ban on fossil fuel investments as university policy, making an international total of twenty one universities that have divested. In Oxfordshire, Oxford City Council voted last year to divest from direct investments in fossil fuels, and the Oxford Diocese divested and has called on the Church of England to divest.

Andrew Taylor Fossil Free Campaigns Manager, People & Planet: ‘The world is watching from the President of Harvard University to indigenous communities resisting tar-sands extraction in Canada. Rejecting the dirtiest of fossil fuel should just be the start. Oil and gas can’t be side stepped.’

Leading actors in the financial sector have acknowledged that fossil fuel investments are increasingly risky, given that known reserves will become ‘unburnable’ in a carbon constrained world. Earlier this year, a report produced by Deutsche Bank suggested that last year’s drop in oil prices was driven by growing consciousness of a carbon budget and political momentum – that “peak carbon rather than peak oil [will become] the primary driver of oil prices.”[4]

CONTACTS:

Rivka Micklethwaite (co-chair, OUSU Environment & Ethics): rivka.micklethwaite@balliol.ox.ac.uk

Andrew Taylor (Fossil Free Campaigns Manager, People & Planet): 0780 156 8782 andrew.taylor@peopleandplanet.org

NOTES TO EDITOR:

People & Planet – Britain’s largest student network campaigning on environmental justice and human rights coordinates the UK university fossil fuel divestment movement.

UK universities invest an estimated £5.2billion annually in the fossil fuel industry (Knowledge and Power, 2013). See a full list of all the institutions that have divested.

Information on the growth of the divestment movement can be found in Measuring the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement (2014) by Arabella Advisors.

More information on the Oxford University campaign so far can be found at their website.

REFERENCES

[1] https://oxfordacademicsfordivestment.wordpress.com/

[2] https://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/petitions/oxford-university-alumni-call-for-divestment

[3] https://oxfordunifossilfree.wordpress.com/about/our-report-averting-a-climate-crisis/

[4] https://gofossilfree.org/deutsche-bank-catches-up-with-the-divestment-movement-in-a-rhetorical-sense/

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