Edinburgh, UK – Students at the University of Edinburgh have been informed that the university’s Central Management Group (CMG) has received a recommendation for the university to divest from companies involved in the coal and tar sands excraction. The recommendation will be passed forward to the next meeting of the University Court in May where it expected to be approved.
A Fossil Fuels Review Group was established in response to the university’s public consultation on responsible investment which concluded in March 2014, in which the majority of respondents supported divestment from fossil fuels and arms. [1] A working group to look at the issue of divestment from the arms industry will be set up in the summer.
Student campaigners from Edinburgh People & Planet, who have been running an ethical investment campaign for 3 years, have said the recommendation does not go far enough.
Kirsty Haigh, Vice President Communities at NUS Scotland, said:
“It’s absolutely crucial that the university do no give into big fossil fuel companies and flout their moral obligations. Full divestment from fossil fuels is the only responsible action. The University shying away from this and choosing to not divest fully is continuing to fund climate chaos. Our futures are too important to be gambled away for university profit.”
The news comes as students, staff and alumni at Harvard University in the United States are taking part in acts of civil disobedience for ‘Harvard Heat Week’. Dozens are reportedly willing to risk arrest at Harvard this week to increase pressure on the university to cuts its ties with fossil fuel companies. [2]
In the UK, decisions on fossil fuel divestment are now expected from UCL, University of London SOAS, Edinburgh, London School of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine, Oxford and Warwick over the coming months. Since October 2013, students in the People & Planet network have launched over 60 Fossil Free campaigns across the UK, engaging over 25,000 students. Last month, students at LSE and King’s College London included demands for fossil fuel divestment in their occupations of their universities. [3]
Last summer, the University of London SOAS became the first UK university to take action, freezing new investments in the fossil fuel industry. [4] In October 2014, the Universities of Glasgow became the first university in Europe to divest, committing to remove £18 million worth of investments from the fossil fuel industry, and in January this year the University of Bedfordshire formalised a ban on fossil fuel investments as university policy, making a total of 21 universities that have divested internationally to date. [5]
Miriam Wilson, Fossil Free Campaign Coordinator at People & Planet, said:
“If the university does actually divest from tar sands, they will be excluding every major oil company from their portfolio, including BP and Shell. Rejecting the dirtiest fossil fuels like coal and tar sands should just be the start. Oil and gas can’t be side-stepped. With divestment decisions expected from a number of presitigious universities over the coming months, the University of Edinburgh risks lagging behind if it does not divest from all fossil fuel companies.”
BP is involved in 3 tar sands lease areas in Canada. Sunrise Phase 1, operated by Husky Energy, started up at the end of 2014 and the first oil is expected to be recovered in the first quarter of 2015. Pike Phase 1, operated by Devon Energy, was granted regulatory approval in November 2014 and is at the design and planning stage. Terre de Grace, which is BP-operated, is currently under appraisal for development. Shell operates the Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP) in north-east Alberta as part of a joint arrangement. The bitumen is transported by pipeline for processing at the Scotford Upgrader, which is also operated by Shell and located in the Edmonton area. [6]
Suzanne Dhaliwal, Director of the UK Tar Sands Network, said:
“It is imperative that our educational institutions make the right decision and pull investments out of the tar sands. These projects are a sinking ship for our economies, communities on the frontlines of tar sands extraction [7] and those already feeling the impacts of climate change. Extracting the CO2 contained in the Alberta tar sands projects alone is enough to take the entire planet past the 2 degree increase in global temperatures that scientists agree is safe. We now know that only 1% of the bitumen, no more han 7.5 billion barrels of oil from the tar sands can be extracted [8] is we are to remain within these limits. BP’s plans for extracting ‘extreme energy’ can no longer pass for business as usual.”
On Thursday, the UK Tar Sands Network will address BP shareholders at the annual general meeting calling for an end to investment in highly polluting fossil fuels.
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CONTACTS
Kirsty Haigh (NUS Scotland Vice President of Communities) 07950 671772, kirsty.haigh@nus-scotland.org.
Miriam Wilson (Fossil Free Campaign Coordinator, People & Planet) 01865 264 180, miriam.wilson@peopleandplanet.
NOTES TO EDITOR
- People & Planet – Britain’s largest student campaigning organisation on world poverty, human rights and the environment – coordinates the UK fossil fuel divestment movement that is rapidly spreading across UK universities. Over 60 university divestment campaigns have been launched since October 2013. http://peopleandplanet.org/fossil-free .
- In partnership with the 350.org divestment campaign in the US, Australia and Canada, People & Planet is campaigning to sever the ties between UK universities and the fossil fuel companies fuelling the climate crisis.
- UK universities invest an estimated £5.2billion annually in the fossil fuel industry (Knowledge and Power, 2013) http://peopleandplanet.org/
navid16462 - Information on the growth of the divestment movement can be found in Measuring the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement (2014) by Arabella Advisors. http://www.arabellaadvisors.
com/wp-content/uploads/2014/ 09/Measuring-the-Global- Divestment-Movement.pdf - More information on the University of Edinburgh campaign so far can be found on their website: http://investethically.
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REFERENCES
[1] See: http://www.ed.ac.uk/about/
[4] See: https://gofossilfree.org/uk/uk-
[5] See a full list of all the institutions that have divested in the UK, here: http://peopleandplanet.org/
[6] Shell: http://reports.shell.com/
http://www.bp.com/content/dam/