London, UK — On Wednesday 13 May, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) announced it has sold off investments in coal companies from its £16m endowment in a bid to rid itself of ties to firms that contribute most significantly to climate change. LSHTM is the second health organisation in the UK and third in the world to have made a divestment decision regarding fossil fuels, according to global health campaigners.
Alice Munro, a nurse studying public health at LSHTM and an active member of the divestment campaign, said,
“We congratulate the school on being the first health research institution in the world to do this. This is a good first step and indicates that the school agrees in principle that investing in polluting fuels is unethical and inconsistent with the values of an institution dedicated to promoting human health.”
Martin McKee, professor of European public health at LSHTM, has backed divestment and called the university a ‘pioneer’:
“I am proud to be part of a university that is prepared to show leadership, whether with Ebola, global health, or in this case disinvestment in fossil fuels. I expect that many other universities will soon follow, recognising the strong economic and moral arguments, but it is good to be one of the pioneers.”
This announcement is the result of a 6 month campaign by students at LSHTM, supported by People & Planet and MedAct [1]. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is now the fourth university in the UK, and the fifth in Europe, to make commitments to divest from fossil fuels in the past 8 months. In the UK, the University of Glasgow, the University of Bedfordshire, and SOAS, University of London have all committed to divest [2], with an international total of 28 universities moving their money out of fossil fuels [3]. Students at Edinburgh University are currently staging an occupation of the university’s management building after it rejected calls to divest on Tuesday. [4]
Campaigners hope that LSHTM’s decision will encourage other leading institutions in the UK to follow suit, including the Wellcome Trust, the Gates Foundation and the University of Oxford, which has the largest endowment of any university in the UK, worth around £3.8 billion – 41% of UK universities’ total endowment wealth. The University of Oxford is expected to make an announcement on divestment next week, on Monday 18 May, following a deferral of a decision in March which led to an alumni occupation of a university administration building [5].
Andrew Taylor, Fossil Free Campaign Manager at People & Planet, said:
“Doctors and health experts at LSHTM understand the threat that climate change poses as a global health emergency and the role that fossil fuel companies play in driving it. The University of Oxford should look to forward-thinking universities like LSHTM as a litmus test for the future and see that it won’t be long before fossil fuel divestment becomes the norm.”
David McCoy, director of MedAct, said:
“This decision will hopefully encourage the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation to follow suit. Both Wellcome and Gates have been finding excuses to avoid taking the kind of radical action needed to avert the crisis of climate change, whilst the moral, financial and scientific case for divestment by health institutions is becoming harder and harder to dismiss.”
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Contact
Interviews with students and academic spokespeople available via Chris Venables, Programs and Fianance Manager at MedAct:
Tel: 020 7324 4736 / 07907 161 225
Email: chrisvenables@medact.org
Notes to editor
[1] MedAct educates, analyses and campaigns for global health on issues related to conflict, poverty and the environment. http://www.medact.org/about/. People & Planet is Britain’s largest student network campaigning on environmental justice and human rights coordinates the UK university fossil fuel divestment movement: http://peopleandplanet.org/fossil-free.
[2] Over the past 18 months, the People & Planet student network has launched over 65 Fossil Free campaigns across the UK and gained the support of the Scottish and UK National Union of Students and over 32,000 individual students. Decisions on fossil fuel divestment are expected shortly from the University of Oxford, Leeds University, Manchester University and Warwick University.
The campaign reflects a growing concern among British students about the dangers of climate change and the investment risks associated with the so-called carbon bubble which threatens to strand the £5.2 billion collectively invested in fossil fuels by UK universities (https://peopleandplanet.org/dl/fossil-free/knowledge-power-report.pdf); an investment in fossil fuels of £2,083 for every student in the UK.
[3] Fossil Free is a global movement to push universities and other public institutions to divest from the 200 fossil fuel companies that hold the vast majority of the world’s oil, coal and gas reserves. Globally, more than 220 institutions have now made commitments to fossil fuel divestment, including faith organisations, pension funds, philanthropic foundations and local authorities. Full list of all the institutions that have divested available at https://gofossilfree.org/commitments/ 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
[4] Edinburgh university rejects calls to divest from all fossil fuels : http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/12/edinburgh-university-rejects-calls-to-divest-from-all-fossil-fuels
[5] Students occupy Oxford university in fossil fuel divestment protest: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/16/oxford-university-defers-fossil-fuel-divestment-decision