Skip to main content

To: City of Oshkosh

Divest Oshkosh from Fossil Fuels!

The City of Oshkosh should immediately freeze any new investments in fossil fuels, and divest from direct ownership and any commingled funds that include fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds within 5 years.

Why is this important?

“$674 billion is invested every year looking for new sources of fossil fuels. A new report warns that continuing to plough this money into fossil fuels could create stranded assets worth $6 trillion in a decade.”
(Source: “Unburnable carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded assets,” http://www.carbontracker.org/wastedcapital. Accessed on April 20, 2013)

“Annual investments of $674bn in the search for oil and gas could create a ‘carbon bubble’ of stranded assets if countries remain committed to meeting UN climate targets.”
(Source: “Warning $674bn ‘carbon bubble’ will blow 2C climate target, http://www.rtcc.org/governments-warned-6tr-carbon-bubble-will-blow-2c-climate-target/. Accessed on April 20, 2013)

Our local government has a responsibility to look out for public goods, so it should divest from an industry that’s bad our future, and reinvest in solutions to climate change.

We can not count on the federal government, even as extreme weather events like the record rain fall in the Duluth area last Spring overwhelm local budgets. 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!

Oshkosh, WI

Maps © Stamen; Data © OSM and contributors, ODbL

Category

Links

Updates

2016-12-23 05:59:42 -0500

10 signatures reached