Climate change – a David and Goliath story

Climate change is terrifying; to me, to a lot of scientists, and to a lot of people like me who think we’re going to be around long enough to see its horrible effects.

The terrifying nature, the unfairness and the sheer complexity of this issue mean that I often feel powerless to tackle it, but last Friday was different. I was part of a united team of people from different walks of life who share a connection with the University of Bristol. We came together to take a small step to lessen the effects of climate change.

Here in the UK we will probably be protected from the worst effects of climate change, by our wealth and our temperate climate. It is, frankly, the poor people, people of colour, living in places like Bangladesh, who are going to get it really bad. That inequality makes me so angry – precisely the people who are least to blame are going to be made to suffer.

This anger at the injustice of climate change is what led me over a year ago to work with students, staff, alumni and other politicians to table a motion to the university of Bristol Court (the university’s advisory body) calling on the University to pull its investments from fossil fuel extraction companies. First time around our motion fell by just two per cent of the vote, but after another year of campaigning our motion was finally passed by a clear majority.

This is the face you pull if you’ve just convinced @BristolUni Court to divest from fossil fuels https://t.co/esC9B8Z28S ft @MollyMEP pic.twitter.com/HoiRbdP500

— Steve Hyndside (@steve4319) December 6, 2016

The motion calls on the university’s trustees to end investment in fossil fuel companies by 2021. It sends a strong message that we believe investing in, and therefore profiting from fossil fuel extraction, the major driver of climate change, is unacceptable.

Divesting from fossil fuels is crucial to protect the long-term security of both our finances and our planet. The latest climate science shows that 75 to 80 per cent of current fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground if we are to have any chance of staying within the 2°C warming limit.

But divesting from fossils fuels is not just the right thing to do for current and future generations, it is the right thing to do for hard-nosed economic reasons. Most of the fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned, they are likely to become ‘stranded assets’, at which point the share prices of oil and gas companies, which are based on the value of their reserves, will fall off a cliff.  The Paris Agreement, which came into in April 2016, makes this more likely than ever. So even if you don’t care about the impacts of climate change on poor people in Bangladesh, divesting from fossil fuel companies is the most financially prudent thing to do.

The final decision on divestment now rests with Bristol University’s trustees, but we hope that they will listen to the combined voice of students, staff, alumni and local politicians who have come together to call for change, and that this will be the penultimate step before full fossil fuel divestment.

The divestment campaign is taking off globally too, with the total portfolio value of all institutions that have divested at around $3.4 trillion, up from $2.6 trillion just 12 months ago. Over 50,000 individuals have divested, and 641 institutions, including one quarter of UK universities.

The message that I hope you’ll take away from the story is: Climate change is a Goliath, but you can be a David.

You may not be a politician, but you are probably an employee of a company that has investments and a pension fund, or a student or graduate of a university that has an endowment fund, or a pensioner, or a donor or trustee of a charity, or a member of a faith group, or a customer of a high-street bank. All of these types of organisations have investments, and many of them are still funding climate change. You have the right to ask them what their investment policies are, and if necessary to change them.

To find out more, visit www.campaigns.gofossilfree.org

Carla Denyer is a Green Party councillor for Clifton Down.