Over the weekend, over 100 protesters staged an ‘oil slick flashmob’ at the Wellcome Collection to increase the pressure on Wellcome Trust to divest its holdings in fossil fuels. Having entered the public gallery just before 11am, protesters dressed in black lay down and filled the lobby to represent a giant oil slick and highlight the Wellcome Trust’s unhealthy relationship with the fossil fuel industry.

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The Wellcome Trust is the second biggest health charity and non-governmental funder of health research in the world. It has an £18bn endowment and that fund contains large investments in fossil fuels, including  more than £450 million invested in Shell, BP, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.

Lorna Buky-Webster, Divest London spokesperson said

‘The action we need to combat climate change is being deliberately obstructed by a powerful fossil fuel industry with much to lose. As the global health challenge of our time, we need world leading organisations like the Wellcome Trust to take a strong stance on climate change that goes to the heart of the issue.

While we celebrate the contributions that the Wellcome Trust has made to human health, we must push them to join the fight for climate justice with action bold enough to match the scale of the challenge. As time runs out for meaningful climate action, we urge the Wellcome Trust to distance itself from the one industry on the planet causing the most damage to human health. It’s time to divest from fossil fuels.’

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The Wellcome Trust’s director, Jeremy Farrar, has so far remained defiant in the face of mounting pressure to divest, arguing that the Wellcome Trust can have more influence on the environmental impacts of fossil fuel companies through engagement at board level as an active shareholder.

Dr Mark Horowitz, doctor and PhD student said:

‘The Wellcome has chosen to divest from tobacco companies because of the contradiction this poses to its core goals. Yet more people die every year from climate change and air pollution than from tobacco; the Wellcome Trust should not continue to fund the drivers of many of the diseases it seeks to cure.

There have been 150 shareholder resolutions related to climate change filed at fossil fuel companies over the last 23 years with no significant effect. A Wellcome Trust-funded scientist wouldn’t repeat the same experiment after 150 failures, so why would the Wellcome Trust?’

The event, organised by grassroots group Divest London, inspired by a campaign from the Guardian calling on two of the world’s largest philanthropic organisations, The Wellcome Trust and The Gates Foundation, to end their investment in fossil fuels. Despite the growing number of charitable trusts and foundations committing to divest from fossil fuels, and more than 180,000 people signing the petition calling for divestment, the Wellcome Trust’s director Jeremy Farrar has refused to do so, stating that it believes in active engagement with fossil fuel companies as a shareholder.

Read Divest London’s  blog about what real ‘engagement’ on climate issues look like

Join the Guardian and 350.org campaign to divest the Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation.

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