1. Immediately freeze any new investments in fossil fuels.
2. Divest from direct ownership and any commingled funds that include fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds, and switch them to low carbon investments within 5 years.
Why is this important?
Climate change, caused by emissions of greenhouse gases from burning oil, is one of the biggest threats to global health in the 21st century. It threatens the lives and livelihoods of billions of people around the world. Extreme weather events — the floods, droughts, melting icecaps and wildfires we've seen in recent years — make it clear that climate change is no longer a future threat: it’s a clear and present danger. Those worst affected, and often least responsible for causing climate change, are the poor and vulnerable in both developed and developing countries.
Trillions of dollars are globally invested in fossil fuels companies by public, private and charitable organisations. LSTM holds £13.44 milion in investment portfolios, and currently, its only exclusion of investment is the tobacco industry, a necessity for health bodies, so it can be assumed that the school indirectly has stocks in fossil fuel companies. This means that LSTM is actually profiting from fossil fuel companies, which contradicts its core mission of saving lives in resource poor countries.
This petition calls on LSTM to carry out the above actions to fall in line with the growing number of universities in the UK and worldwide who have committed to divesting, and fulfil its responsibilities in reducing climate change (as one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals), as it does with other global health problems.
