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Colleges & Universities

  • Fossil Free Liverpool University
    Climate Change is an issue which will disrupt our entire planet's weather and ecosystems if we allow it to happen. The effects on society will be drastic and chaotic leading to increased disease, famine, poverty, migration. We want our university be a bold leader in the fight against Climate Change and the transition to a sustainable and fairer society. The failure of the industry and global leaders over the past decades to enact meaningful change has forced the need for progressive action: divestment. The university is a leading researcher in areas of sustainable energy, environment, climate, health, food security and conflict. We want the university to have consistent values in its activities, that it will not endorse or profit from these highly unethical companies. The status quo isn't working and the transition to sustainability is inevitable so let us be bold, let us be positive, let us act on the right side of history and usher in a new better era. Divesting from these companies frees up capital to reinvest in our new technologies, industries and economies for a secure and sustainable future.
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    Created by Fossil Free Liverpool University
  • UCL, DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS
    Climate change has already caused millions to lose their lives and livelihoods after only one degree of global average warming [5]. ‘Business as usual’ scenarios see us facing up to six degrees of warming and hundreds of millions suffering. It’s time to take this problem on at its source: the fossil fuel companies. If it is wrong to wreck the climate, then it is wrong to profit from that wreckage. UCL cannot continue to use its funds from students, alumni, trusts and grant-making bodies to fund fossil fuel companies through its portfolio of investments. UCL's academics show a strong consensus on the effects of climate change, taking it into account in their research and making constructive proposals for how we can respond to and overcome it as a society. UCL is giving money to further this positive research yet chooses to invest in the fossil fuel industry, the root cause of climate change. This shows massive disrespect to their own staff, to the future of their students, and to all those around the world suffering the effects of climate change but also from the human right violations carried out by fossil fuel companies. With 1/4 of UK universities now having divested, 16 of which in the last year, UCL is losing its chance to lead the way towards a more sustainable world, proving that management prioritises profit over the protection of the environment, the future generations and the voice of thousands of students and academic staff who support divestment. In the ultimatum letter we sent to management in November 2016 we received more than 100 signatures from academic staff who support divestment [6]. How long will management keep disregarding the views of its student body and staff? One of the few counter-arguments management has presented is that they are scared divestment would negatively affect UCL's engineering department. However there is no evidence that by divesting UCL will risk its sponsorship from fossil fuel companies and jeopardise the ties the Engineering department have with them. All other universities who have divested still maintain links with the companies with no effect on their students future relations with these companies whatsoever. It is therefore high time we DEMOCRATISED our university and TAKE ACTION to prevent further planetary degradation. We as students, academics and above all citizens, have the power to change the world. References: [1] http://www.ucl.ac.uk/white-paper/mission [2] UCL Investment Portfolio, December 2012. [3] http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/08/Unburnable-Carbon-Full1.pdf, p.13-14. [4] UCL Ethical Investment Policy, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/finance/finance_docs/investment_policy.htm [5] DARA, Climate Vulnerability Number 2010 http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2010/ [6] Open Letter to UCL Management http://fossilfreeucl.tumblr.com/openletter
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    Created by Natasha Gorodnitski
  • Divest Ulster University from Fossil Fuels
    The Students’ Union recently received a response to their freedom of information request Ulster University on their investment portfolio. We had inquired as to Ulster University’s direct investments through Innovation Ulster and those made indirectly through it’s Endowment Fund. It was found that the University invests its Endowment Fund through the Rathbones Active Income and Growth Fund. Without taking into consideration the fund’s direct investments, and bearing in mind that the total amount of money Rathbones are managing for the University is over £7 million, it has invested approximately £80,000 in fossil fuel companies such as Dutch Shell and BP. Furthermore, the University also have significant investments in the tobacco industry (Over £26,000) and most worryingly in the arms industry (£13,000). In this current climate we believe this money should be invested into student facilities and more sustainable alternatives.
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    Created by Campaigns Officer
  • Divest Appalachian
    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.
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    Created by Dustin Hicks
  • University of Illinois at Chicago: Go Fossil Free!
    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 $50bn 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. As public pressure to confront climate change builds, we call on University of Illinois at Chicago to immediately freeze any new investment in fossil-fuel companies, and to divest within five years from direct ownership and from any commingled funds that include fossil-fuel public equities and corporate bonds. We believe such action on behalf of University of Illinois at Chicago will not only be a sound decision for our institution's financial portfolio, but also for the wellbeing of its current and future graduating classes, who deserve the opportunity to graduate with a future not defined by climate chaos.
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    Created by Emily Church
  • University of Exeter Fossil Free Campaign
    JPMorgan Chase is one of the worlds largest investment banks and as such has its fingers in a great many pots. Unfortunately some of these pots come with some truly terrible baggage, from fossil fuels to animal testing JPMorgan invests in them all. This sadly includes being the US's largest share holders in PetroChina, a company which has been widely recognized and condemned for helping finance genocide in Sudan. That means in a single company your tuition fees have direct connections to both the worsening of Climate Change and a Genocide that stills claims more than 100 lives every day. For a University to profit from any of these causes is wrong beyond belief but to be involved in all of them and more is a complete catastrophe. By signing you are telling the University that this cannot continue and that you support the campaign for not just a Fossil Free Exeter but an Ethically Invested Exeter as well.
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    Created by Robin Ellis-Cockcroft
  • Divest NUI Galway From Fossil Fuels
    Currently, NUI Galway has at least 3.4 million Euro invested in oil and gas shares globally. Though shares in these fossil fuel companies may prove to be profitable in the short-term, research indicates that at least 80% of fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground in order to prevent catastrophic changes to our climate. Therefore, it is the responsibility of public institutions to disengage in partnerships and support of fossil fuel companies in favor of more sustainable and ethical investments that will promote the health and welfare of both the planet, and all of her peoples.
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    Created by Colm Duffy Picture
  • Divest UWS From Fossil Fuels
    The University of the West of Scotland has over £1 million worth of investments. Numerous companies that the University invests in, including Shell have been accused of human rights abuses. For more information about our campaign and to get involved, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/362019827317758/ Further reading: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/08/glasgow-becomes-first-university-in-europe-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels
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    Created by Kevin McKinley
  • Durham University: Divest from Fossil Fuels
    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 of course 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.
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    Created by Durham University People and Planet Society Picture
  • Make the University of Leeds Fossil Free!
    To put the University of Leeds at the forefront of the global movement to reject our reliance on fossil fuels. To follow the successful example of the University of Glasgow, who have recently achieved a divestment policy. To achieve transparency, so that students (current and prospective) know where their money is going, and all members of the University know its position on environmental issues. From tar sands to Arctic drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) for shale gas - the fossil fuel industry is scraping the bottom of the barrel and causing huge environmental and human devastation in the process. Withdrawing our institutions’ financial and moral backing for this climate-wrecking industry is crucial to tackling climate change. For more information: http://peopleandplanet.org/fossil-free http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/08/glasgow-becomes-first-university-in-europe-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels https://www.facebook.com/groups/pandpleeds/?fref=ts https://www.leeds.ac.uk/secretariat/documents/socially_responsible_investment.pdf
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    Created by Edie Boon