{"id":7759,"date":"2015-12-02T14:07:15","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T14:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/in-the-space-of-just-10-weeks\/"},"modified":"2015-12-02T14:07:15","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T14:07:15","slug":"in-the-space-of-just-10-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/in-the-space-of-just-10-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"In the space of just 10 weeks&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The divestment movement has been gathering pace and building momentum ahead of the climate summit in Paris, where we announced today that <strong>more than 500 institutions representing over $3.4 trillion in assets<\/strong> have made some form of divestment commitment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>On 21st September, we were at 400 institutions representing $2.6 trillion under management.<strong> In the past ten weeks, more than 100 institutions made new commitments to divest from fossil fuels.<\/strong><\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/CVN7Lh8WoAEDsqw.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7035\" src=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/CVN7Lh8WoAEDsqw.jpg\" alt=\"CVN7Lh8WoAEDsqw\" width=\"749\" height=\"367\" \/><\/a>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s hard to keep track of all the divestment developments at this fast pace, so here are some of the <strong>recent highlights from Europe<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Paris<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>Lille<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>Bordeaux<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>17 other local authorities* in France<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> have passed motions to put pressure on their fund managers Caisse des D\u00e9p\u00f4ts \u2013 France\u2019s most important public investor &#8211; and the national pension fund to divest from fossil fuels.\u00a0<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">* Allonnes, Champagne-Ardennes, Cherbourg, Colombes, D\u00e9partement de la Gironde, Dijon, Hellemes, H\u00e9nin Carvin (coal only), La Ravoire, Montreuil, Saint Denis, R\u00e9gion Bourgogne, R\u00e9gion Ile-de-France, R\u00e9gion Poitou-Charente, R\u00e9gion Rh\u00f4ne Alpes and Rennes, and the first district of the city of Lyon.<\/span><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>French national assembly<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> adopted, on the 25th of November, a motion that encourages public investors, companies and local authorities to no longer invest in fossil fuels. The motion opens up plenty of opportunities to put pressure on public investors such as the French pension funds.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/CVN0hl9XIAAZl11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-7037 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/CVN0hl9XIAAZl11.jpg\" alt=\"CVN0hl9XIAAZl11\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The world\u2019s biggest insurance company <\/span><b>Allianz<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> announced its plans to pull the plug on investments in companies that make more than 30% of their revenue from coal and increase investments in wind energy.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The divestment movement is not only stirring up Paris but capital cities across Europe: <\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Norway\u2019s capital <\/span><b>Oslo<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> announced they will divest.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Stockholm<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>Amsterdam<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are reviewing their investments in fossil fuels.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Delegates from all parties at Germany\u2019s capital <\/span><b>Berlin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> called for divestment from fossil fuels.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mayoral candidates in <\/span><b>London<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are positioning themselves on the question in response to a vibrant divestment campaign in the UK\u2019s capital.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>M\u00fcnster<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> became the first German city to join the divestment movement. The city has since been swamped with queries from other German cities that want to follow M\u00fcnster\u2019s example.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_7043\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/20284537626_761532fbbd_z.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7043\" class=\"wp-image-7043 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/20284537626_761532fbbd_z.jpg\" alt=\"Photo: Linda Choritz - licht-gestalten.net\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7043\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Linda Choritz &#8211; licht-gestalten.net\/<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first church in Germany committed to drop investments in coal, oil and gas too: the <\/span><b>Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> will make its investments worth \u20ac1.8 billion fossil free.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After campaigners released details on the fossil fuel investments of local authorities across the UK, there are now 50 divestment campaigns in cities across the campaign. <\/span><b>Cambridge<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>Kirklees<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>Norwich<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> passed motions supporting divestment and calling on their pension funds to divest. <\/span><b>South Yorkshire Pension Fund<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> adopted new investment policies that exclude \u2018pure\u2019 coal and tar sands companies.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Uppsala<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> not only committed to divest but challenged the three bigger Swedish cities to follow its example.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/uppsala-win-coty.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6941 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/uppsala-win-coty.jpg\" alt=\"uppsala-win-coty\" width=\"1000\" height=\"750\" \/><\/a>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dutch pension fund <\/span><b>PFZW<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> announced it will divest from coal companies and reduce its investments in other fossil fuel companies. The fund has \u20ac161 billion of assets under management. Meanwhile, Fossil Free ABP campaigners are in consultation with <\/span><b>Dutch pension fund ABP<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> after it announced a new sustainability policy, which will cut fossil fuel investments somewhat and increase investments in renewable energy.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dutch banking group <\/span><b>ING<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> decided to no longer finance new coal power plants and thermal coal mines, and companies whose business is more than 50% reliant on such projects.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/12314137_10154095886398488_8968245261207966042_n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-7045 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2015\/12\/12314137_10154095886398488_8968245261207966042_n.jpg\" alt=\"12314137_10154095886398488_8968245261207966042_n\" width=\"960\" height=\"584\" \/><\/a>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the first day of the climate negotiations in Paris, the <strong>University of Sheffield<\/strong> committed to divest its \u00a339 million endowment from fossil fuels. Just last week, the <\/span><b>London School of Economics (LSE)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> committed to divest its \u00a397.2 million endowment from coal and tar sands companies and to not invest directly in any fossil fuel companies. LSE and Sheffield are the latest in a series of 19 UK universities that have started to cut their financial ties with fossil fuel companies, including the <\/span><b>University of Surrey<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>University of the Arts London<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>Oxford Brookes University<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><b>Wolfson College at the University of Oxford<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with an endowment fund of \u00a342 million decided to divest from coal and tar sands. Fund manager <\/span><b>CCLA<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which manages investments for six universities, charities, religious organisations and the public sector, excluded coal and tar sands from its investments.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the next couple of days, divestment campaigners from all over Europe will arrive in Paris to further strengthen the movement far beyond Paris and the climate talks. <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/europe\/paris-convergence\/\">Join the Fossil Free Paris convergence!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Below you can watch a brand new documentary about the rise of the fossil fuel divestment movement in Europe and across the globe.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FHQ0Nb-nC8Y?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The divestment movement has been gathering pace and building momentum ahead of the climate summit in Paris, where we announced<span class=\"text-cutoff\">&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":7760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,152,124,35,140,133,153,82],"tags":[210,211,212,213,40,214,215,216,217,106,218,219,55,220,221,118],"class_list":["post-7759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city","category-divestment-2","category-education","category-europe","category-faith-2","category-municipality","category-sweden","category-uk","tag-abp","tag-allianz","tag-amsterdam","tag-berlin","tag-fossil-free","tag-france","tag-lille","tag-local-council","tag-munster","tag-oslo","tag-paris","tag-paris-2015","tag-pension-fund","tag-pfzw","tag-stockholm","tag-university"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gofossilfree.org\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}