In order to stop the global climate warming by 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and avert global catastrophe, 80% of all known fossil fuels must stay in the ground. [1] By removing investments in fossil fuel companies Northamptonshire County Council will be showing its commitment to creating a healthy, sustainable future for both the people of Northants and the planet as a whole. 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are the primary cause of recent climate change, largely due to the release of greenhouse gases from the combustion of oil, coal and gas for heat and power. Climate change is happening now - we’re already experiencing global temperature rise, warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. [2] Whole ecosystems are threatened, and people's lives are at risk due to flooding, food and water insecurity, creating climate change refugees. [3] NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Northamptonshire Local Government Pension Scheme Fund Total-£1,659,847,000 Total Fossil Fuel Investment- £171,800,000 (10.35%) Direct Investments- £115,377,000 (6.95%) Projected Indirect Investments-£56,423,000.00 (3.39%) [4] [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30709211 [2] http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ [3] http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e4a5096.html [4] http://gofossilfree.org/uk/pensions/

Climate change and other environmental issues are the greatest threat facing humanity as a whole in this century. We have a human responsibility to each other and our descendants to minimize our impact. Failure in this regard will be tragic and expensive, represented by the poor condition many fossil fuel companies which have failed to modernize and begin moving to alternatives are in as far as profits and stock value. The University of Evansville, as a bastion of higher learning, has a responsibility to its students and donors to maintain both profitable and ethical investments, of which a great many fossil fuel companies fail to be at least one.

Climate change is accelerating. We are witnessing the increasing impacts of a warming planet more and more consistently; in this last year alone our country experienced record-breaking heat, droughts, and hurricanes, which impacted hundreds of thousands of people and cost our country hundreds of billions of dollars. Hurricane Sandy alone caused $50 billion in damages. Experts agree that global warming caused by humans burning fossil fuels will continue to accelerate and intensify these tragic climate disasters. The scientific consensus is clear and overwhelming; we cannot safely burn even half of global fossil-fuel reserves without dangerously warming the planet for several thousand years.

Our local government has a responsibility to divest from an industry that’s destroying our future, and reinvest in solutions to climate change. We cannot count on the federal government, even as extreme weather events can overwhelm local budgets. Average temperatures are already increasing, along with the frequency of extreme heat, storms, and dry summers. We have the solutions, but we won’t see any political progress on the issue until we can weaken the power of the fossil fuel industry. The bottom line is this: divestment is the only moral choice for governments that care about their citizens. Solving the climate crisis is the only practical choice for governments that care about their solvency. It's time to divest from fossil fuels now!

At the moment Durham University has an investment policy that states that they won't invest in arms or tobacco companies. But no such policy against investing in fossil fuel companies exists. Carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels results in the heating of the atmosphere. A rise of more than 2˚C in global temperatures is enough to put the world beyond the acceptable limits as outlined by scientists. Fossil fuel companies already have proven reserves of five times the amount needed to take us past this limit. At the moment the share price of fossil fuel companies is based on the idea that all the reserves held by fossil fuel companies will be burnt. This situation is not viable given the severely detrimental impact it will have on the environment. This disparity between the safely useable reserves and the proven reserves results in fossil fuel companies being not as safe a long-term investment as they are held up to be. Given the massive amounts of damage fossil fuel companies do to the lives of people around the world, the obvious environmental costs of the industry and the long term instability of fossil fuels as an investment, Durham University People & Planet Society are calling on the university to divest any money it has invested in fossil fuel companies and to add fossil fuels to the list of things in which it will not invest in the future.

Millions of pounds of public money – our local rates – are being spent on fossil fuel companies. We all know that carbon emissions from oil, gas and coal are harming our planet, threatening the future of humanity and the extinction of up to a million species. Tyne & Wear Pension Fund invests more than £230 million in fossil fuels. It has recently adopted a climate policy that has 2050 as its deadline for net zero investment. 2050 is far too late to protect humanity and our planet from disastrous temperature rises. Our UK Government, our local councils and countries around the world are committed to ending the use of the fossil fuels that are pumping carbon emissions into our air. They agree that this is URGENT! All the councils that are part of the Tyne and Wear Pension Fund have declared a climate emergency but have not sold (“divested") their pension holdings in fossil-fuel companies. -the United Nations have said we are at “code red” for humanity. -our current emissions are on target for disastrous temperature rises. -the fossil fuel industry is not changing quickly enough to meet the Paris Agreement targets that are vital to our safety. Many other pension funds have made the decision to divest from fossil fuel investment. We call on Tyne & Wear Pension Fund to do the same. And we call on the six local authorities that are members of the fund – and scores of other smaller organisations – to make clear their support for divestment as soon as possible. Fossil fuel companies have five times the reserves that match the Paris Agreements limits. But they are still pushing to find more fossil fuel reserves and still making huge profits from speeding up global warming. Continued engagement with and investment in the fossil fuel industry jeopardises the very future that pension funds are supposed to guarantee and secure. Tyne & Wear must end that investment, and switch to others, especially the green economy. Let’s work together: -for a sustainable, viable and secure future for us all and our children -to reverse the decline of biodiversity and support our wildlife and countryside -to promote clean air and a healthier society. Thank you for your support.

Climate change is not simply an environmental problem, but an issue of social justice, intergenerational equity, and the viability for future human endeavors. It is now widely understood that we cannot safely burn even one-third of global fossil fuel reserves without dangerously warming the planet for several thousand years. We are already witnessing the increasing impacts of a warming planet more and more consistently; in the last year alone our country experienced record-breaking heat, droughts, and extreme rainfall. These events had a grave impact on hundreds of thousands of people and cost our country billions of dollars. Experts agree that global warming caused by humans burning fossil fuels will continue to accelerate and intensify these tragic climate disasters. Through its current investment portfolio, City of Greater Shepparton is facilitating and profiting from the continued and expanding extraction and burning of fossil fuels, despite the harm that these practices are known to be causing to many millions of people worldwide. It is unethical and immoral for our council to be investing in, and profiting from companies that will condemn the planet to climate disaster. Therefore, we are calling on City of Greater Shepparton to divest from the fossil fuel industry. We believe divestment not only makes sense morally, but increasingly also financially, given the decrease in oil prices and associated investments and likelihood of a ‘carbon bubble’ bursting. Continued investment in companies that extract fossil fuels represents a significant risk to City of Greater Shepparton as these companies will face large devaluations when the world moves to lower emission energy sources. Let's strengthen City of Greater Shepparton’s commitment to sustainability and social justice by going fossil free.

As rate paying residents of Hobart we are extremely concerned about the effects of catastrophic climate change on our planet in general and Tasmania specifically.  We are calling upon Hobart City Council to live up to its promise to lead the community in responding to the threat of climate change and join the growing number of cities and municipalities worldwide in divesting from the fossil fuel industry.   Hobart City Council currently has $26 million, over 70% of its total investment portfolio, with the big banks which finance the fossil fuel industry.   There is a global concensus that the rise in temperatureS must be limited to 2°C to avoid catastrophic climate change, which would have severe effects both globally and locally, with Tasmania predicted to experience loss of economically important ecosystems and species due to warming oceans, loss of coastal areas to rising sea levels and increase in the frequency and severity of catastrophic bushfires.   To ensure warming does not exceed this 2°C limit, it has been estimated that 80% of remaining fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground. Since national governments are not acting fast enough to ensure this, a growing number of local governments are ruling out using the money entrusted to them by their residents to advance the destruction of our planet. Cities that have divested so far have included Melbourne, Newcastle, Byron Shire Council, Freemantle, ACT, San Francisco, Seattle, Oslo and many others.

We will not keep climate change at bay without halting our extraction of fossil-fuels. Plymouth University prides itself in its sustainability and environmental performance however neglecting to sign the declaration and commit to excluding fossil fuels from future investments shows a clear inconsistency in their policy. The People and Planet society here at Plymouth University want this to change. Despite no current investments in fossil fuels there is no policy stopping this in the future. Plymouth University was once at the top of the People and Planet University League Table (2015), but by 2019 had dropped down to 15th. By signing the Fossil Free Declaration Plymouth could both increase their position AND show a renewed commitment to global social and climate justice. As students we are investing our time and money into our education and future. So why shouldn't our institute of learning promise never to invest in Fossil Fuels and invest in our future instead?

Climate change is the biggest threat to the future of our global society. Research carried out by Bill McKibben and 350.org has identified that fossil fuel companies declared reserves far exceed the amount that can be safely burned if we are to limit Co² in the atmosphere to a level that will keep projected temperature rises to within 2°C. 2°C was the “safe” level of temperature rises agreed at the Copenhagen Climate talks and that figure was based on the overwhelming scientific consensus among climate scientists. To keep temperature rises below 2°C we need to limit the amount of Co² we emit and that means that 80% of the declared reserves of the largest 200 fossil fuel companies cannot be burned. Temperature rises above 2°C will have devastating consequences for people, societies and eco-systems around the world. There are moral reasons to divest. If business as usual means investing in an industry that will have devastating effects on future generations, this is an issue of inter-generational justice. There are financial reasons. The value of the companies is based on the fossil fuel reserves which are held and their potential future profits, and given that 80% of known reserves must stay in the ground the value of these shares is vastly overestimated. The value of the shares are expected to fall dramatically in future and if we don't act quickly our investments will make a loss as 'stranded assets' when the Carbon Bubble bursts. The Merseyside Pension fund currently has £198,897,000 directly invested in fossil fuel companies and another estimated £156,298,000 indirectly invested in commingled funds that include fossil fuel companies. This means in total the pension fund has £355,195,000 invested in fossil fuels. For more information about divestment please visit http://gofossilfree.org/uk/

Because Climate Change brings all manner of changes to our living experiences at this present time. This is not only for us in the UK, but for many other of the human race around the world. Fossil fuel reserves are more than three times higher than we can afford to burn in order to stay below the generally agreed threshold for dangerous climate change. Our children should not have to face the difficulties we are setting up for them by continuing to rely on fossil fuels. The effects on the Southern Pacific Islands and other Small Island States illustrate to us that the only moral choice for institutions that care about the planet and it's residents, is divestment.

Fossil fuel companies’ current reserves of oil, coal and gas hold 5 times more carbon than the world’s atmosphere can safely handle. Their business plan will cause climate chaos for billions of us, yet UK universities still collectively invest £5.2 billion in fossil fuel companies (1). The University of Cambridge and Colleges have an overall endowment that equates to almost £5 billion (Ibid.). Without an ethical policy (unlike universities such as Oxford, UCL and St. Andrews), this money is invested in companies without consideration of their catastrophic environmental impact. At a global and local level, the impacts of these investments contradict the University’s positive contributions to society, through research and education. Over the past two years the global divestment movement has shown the very real path to a sustainable, fossil-free future. Regarding fossil fuels, the divestment campaign is the fastest growing climate justice campaign in history. So far, $2.6 trillion has been divested from fossil fuels by 456 institutions (Ibid.). It is recognised across the world that global temperatures must remain no more than 2°C higher than in pre-industrial times if climate change is not to destroy our entire way of life (Ibid.). For this to happen, study after study has demonstrated that 80% of currently known fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground (Ibid.). This view is endorsed by mainstream elements of society, from Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, to the United Nations. Companies like BP and Shell – and the University’s investments in them—are not part of a sustainable future, no matter how they, or the University, might pretend otherwise. Small investments in renewables are far outweighed by the catastrophic impacts of continued oil extraction. In universities around this country and the world, divestment is denying these companies their moral acceptability – Cambridge needs to catch up. In the University’s “Dear World...” Campaign, it has positioned itself as the driving force for a better future. If it wants anyone to respect that, it needs to demonstrate moral leadership and distance itself from the fossil fuel industry. Fortunately, the working group on investment recently set up by the University presents the perfect opportunity, just a month before the historic climate summit in Paris. All moral and financial arguments point to the same thing – divestment from fossil fuels. References: (1) People and Planet (2013). Knowledge and Power: Fossil Free Universities Report. https://peopleandplanet.org/dl/fossil-free/knowledge-power-report.pdf