Text by Josefin Winberg.
Fossil Free friends,
My name is Josefin and I’m a student and climate campaigner at University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
For almost two years now, students and staff in the Swedish cities of Lund, Uppsala and Gothenburg have been urging their universities to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Their response so far to one of our generation’s most important crises? Silence, dilatory arguments, and negative decisions.
All three universities are holding crucial board meetings the following week but, shockingly, divestment isn’t even on their meeting agendas. We plan to change all that — but the students and staff at our universities need your help.
Will you join us in telling our universities it’s #DecisionTime on fossil fuel divestment?
Tweet: Fossil fuel #divestment myths busted! http://bit.ly/1G9hP4s @goteborgsuni @lundsuni @uppsalauni, time to #divest. #DecisionTime #TaStällning
With Norway’s historic decision on Friday to divest its $900bn wealth fund from the dirtiest fossil fuels, there’s never been a better time to pile on the pressure for real and meaningful action. We are building the momentum needed to confront the climate crisis and this powerful industry.
Students at Edinburgh University recently forced their board to reconsider and commit to divestment from coal and tar sands just two weeks after receiving a rejection — they refused to take ‘no’ for an answer and escalated their campaign!
Together now, we have an opportunity to influence three of Sweden’s largest universities and urge them to lead the way in the transition to a fossil free society by divesting from fossil fuels.
Please send that tweet (and if you’re not on Twitter, you can get involved in our campaigns here. We’ll be taking action on our campuses from 9- 17 June until we get an answer)
Thank you for your help,
Josefin
– on behalf of Fossil Free Götesborgs Universitet, Fossil Free Lund University and Fossil Free Uppsala Universitet
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We debunk divestment myths today on Sweden’s largest environmental blog, Supermiljöbloggen: http://supermiljobloggen.se/debatt/2015/06/universiteten-tiger-i-divesteringsfragan-studenter-kraver-svar
Climate expectations raised after Norwegian $900bn coal divestment https://gofossilfree.org/press-release/climate-expectations-raised-after-norwegian-coal-divestment/
University of Edinburgh concedes to divestment campaigners