The Real Cost of Fossil Fuel Divestment

I don’t see a direct path between divesting and solving climate change. I think it’s wonderful that students care and now the Pope cares. But that energy of caring, I think you need to direct it towards something that solves the problem.

“Since a divestment campaign has little hope of directly impacting the future cash flows of fossil fuel companies, neutral debt or equity investors have little cause to shun to fossil fuel companies. […] Considerable communication with management of the target firm can be undertaken to influence behaviour before using up the trump card of divestment.”

“I have urged the London Pension Fund Authority to use its influence as a large intitutional investor to encourage long-term behaviour in the companies in which they invest. […] Therefore I cannot accept the Assembly’s motion on divestment.”

“The desire for a low carbon world is not in dispute, yet the means by which we achieve that – through the financial impact and signal value of invested university funds – remains contentious. We do not believe that a blanket divestment policy from fossil fuel extraction companies is the way forward.”

“Despite the Guardian campaign, at Wellcome we’ve found it’s more constructive to actively engage with the companies in which we invest.”

“It is easy to portray recommendations like these as adversarial, ‘us’ the investors versus ‘them’ the companies. We don’t see it like that. We will engage with companies to discuss and – we hope – bring about the changes we want.”

“Divestment does little more on this dimension other than to turn an inside voice that can demand that a company listen into an outside voice that a company can easily ignore.”

“By simply divesting, you lessen and significantly diminish your influence, becoming an outsider looking in.”

“The movement is an elaborate charade, which is too inconsistent and impractical to succeed. Even the campaigners admit they are not entirely serious.”