April, 25 2013, 03:39pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jamie Henn, 350.org Communications Director, jamie@350.org, 415-601-9337
Daniel Kessler, 350.org Media Campaigner, dk@350.org, 510-501-1779
Ten U.S. Cities Commit to Pursue Fossil Fuel Divestment
Cities add momentum a national movement that has spread to over 300 colleges and universities across the country
SEATTLE
The Mayor of Seattle, 350.org, and the Mayors Innovation Project announced today that nine mayors and city councils across the country are joining the Mayor of Seattle in urging their cities to divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies because of the industry's responsibility for the climate crisis.
"Divestment is just one of the steps we can take to address the climate crisis," said Mayor Mike McGinn of Seattle, who this November urged the city's pension fund to divest from the fossil fuel industry and is now encouraging other mayors to do the same. "Cities that do so will be leaders in creating a new model for quality of life, environmental sustainability and economic success. We've got a head start on that here in Seattle, but there's a lot more work to do."
The other cities who have agreed to pursue divestment include: Madison, WI, Bayfield, WI, Ithaca, NY, Boulder, CO, Rochester, MN, Eugene, OR, Richmond, CA, Berkeley, CA, and San Francisco, CA. In San Francisco, the city's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to urge the cities $16 billion pension fund to divest over $583 million from the fossil fuel industry. Elsewhere, the mayors have agreed to pursue ways to keep their city funds out of fossil fuel companies and urge either their city or state pension fund to divest.
Today's announcement marked the official launch of the city and state divestment campaign, which is led by the Mayors Innovation Project and 350.org, an international climate campaign.
"Cities are taking the lead on the issue of climate change" said Joel Rogers, Director of the Mayors Innovation Project. "In the face of federal and state inaction, cities know they have to protect themselves."
In Richmond, home to a Chevron oil refinery that is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California and a major contributor to respiratory health problems in the city, the divestment campaign has particular resonance.
"Richmond is home to the 2nd largest oil refinery and largest point source of greenhouse gas emissions in California," said Richmond, CA Mayor Gayle McLaughlin. "I am proud to join with other cities in this divestment campaign, as we divest from an industry that is wreaking havoc on our community and planet, and reinvest in a clean energy economy with new jobs for our residents."
In Ithaca, NY, 26-year old Mayor Svante Myrick, one of the youngest mayors and youngest African-Americans elected in US history, agreed to pursue divestment after meeting with a group of local high school students who urged him to act in order to protect their future.
"The City of Ithaca does not invest in fossil fuels and I can certainly commit, as long as I am Mayor, to not investing City funds in fossil fuels," said Mayor Myrick earlier this week. "The commitment these young people have shown to safeguarding our environment should serve as an inspiration to us all."
According to 350.org, divestment petitions are already up and running in 100 other cities and states across the country. Modeled on the anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s, the fossil fuel divestment campaign started last fall at colleges and universities and has now spread to over 300 campuses across the country. Four colleges, Unity, Hampshire, Sterling, and College of the Atlantic, have agreed to divestment. The new city commitments are a big boost for the campaign.
"It's so fitting that American cities are taking the lead in the fight to weaken the fossil fuel industry's political power," said Bill McKibben, a prominent environmentalist and founder of 350.org. "Since every city public works department is already spending scads of cash to deal with the gathering storms and rising seas climate change is bringing, it's clear it makes no sense for them to also prop up the industries that make it necessary."
For many, concerns about climate change are driving this new divestment effort. The campaign is specifically targeting the 200 companies that own the vast majority of the world's coal, oil and gas reserves. Those reserves contain five times more carbon dioxide than scientists say society can emit and still keep global warming below 2degC, a limit that nearly every country on Earth, including the United States, has agreed to meet.
Fossil fuel divestment may prove to be a good financial move, as well. A recent study by the Aperio Group, a financial advisory firm, concluded that fossil fuel divestment would increase a portfolio's risk by only around 0.01%. The report's lead author, Patrick Geddes, a former CFO for MorningStar and former analyst for the oil company Amoco, told reporters on a recent webinar that, "Statistically, it's basically noise."
At the same time, many are raising concerns about the risks of staying invested in the fossil fuel industry. According to a new report by HSBC, if countries agree to meet the 2degC target and pass regulations strong enough to keep 75-80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, the write off of those reserves could cause loss in market value of up to 60% for fossil fuel companies like BP, Shell, and Chevron. Earlier this year, Oxford University launched a new program to study the risk a "carbon bubble" could pose to the market.
Over the coming months, 350.org, the Mayors Innovation Project, and other partners will continue to spread the divestment to campaign to more cities and states across the country, with the goal of convincing some of the largest pension funds in the US to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
Contact Information:
At 350.org: Jamie Henn, jamie@350.org, 415-601-9337
At Mayors Innovation Project: James Irwin, jirwin@cows.org, 608-262-6585
In Richmond, CA: Mayor Gail McLaughlin, Mayor@officeofthemayor.net, 510-620-6503
In Ithaca, NY: Julie Conley Holcomb, City Clerk, julieh@cityofithaca.org, 607-274-6570
In Seattle, WA: Aaron Pickus, Aaron.Pickus@seattle.gov, 425-418-7606
In San Francisco, CA: Jeremy Pollock, Office of Supervisor John Avalos, jeremy.pollock@sfgov.org, 415-554-7910
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
UN Chief Warns of Israel's Syria Invasion and Land Seizures
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the "urgent need" for Israel to "de-escalate violence on all fronts."
Dec 12, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
While Israel argues that its invasion of Syria does not violate a 1974 armistice agreement between the two countries because the Assad dynasty no longer rules the neighboring nation, Dujarric said Guterres maintains that Israel must uphold its obligations under the deal, "including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the cease-fire and stability in Golan."
Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
Other countries including France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel's invasion, while the United States defended the move.
"The Syrian army abandoned its positions in the area... which potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing earlier this week. "Israel has said that these actions are temporary to defend its borders. These are not permanent actions... We support all sides upholding the 1974 disengagement agreement."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders Says 'Political Movement,' Not Murder, Is the Path to Medicare for All
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," he said. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together."
Dec 12, 2024
Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
"The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on Earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies," he told Jacobin. "It will take a political revolution in this country to get Congress to say, 'You know what, we're here to represent ordinary people, to provide quality care to ordinary people as a human right,' and not to worry about the profits of insurance and drug companies."
Asked about Thompson's alleged killer—26-year-old Luigi Mangione, whose reported manifesto railed against the nation's expensive healthcare system and low life expectancy—Sanders said: "You don't kill people. It's abhorrent. I condemn it wholeheartedly. It was a terrible act. But what it did show online is that many, many people are furious at the health insurance companies who make huge profits denying them and their families the healthcare that they desperately need."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system," he continued, noting the tens of thousands of Americans who die each year because they can't get to a doctor.
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
Sanders—one of the few members of Congress who regularly talks about Medicare for All—isn't alone in suggesting that unsympathetic responses to Thompson's murder can be explained by a privatized healthcare system that fails so many people.
In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
"You condemn the murder of an insurance executive who was a father of two kids," he said. "At the same time, you say there's obviously an outpouring behavior of people whose claims are being denied, and we need to reform the system."
Two other Medicare for All advocates, Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also made clear to Business Insider that they oppose Thompson's murder but understand some of the responses to it.
"Of course, we don't want to see the chaos that vigilantism presents," said Ocasio-Cortez. "We also don't want to see the extreme suffering that millions of Americans confront when your life changes overnight from a horrific diagnosis, and people are led to just some of the worst, not just health events, but the worst financial events of their and their family's lives."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
After facing some criticism for those comments, Warren added Wednesday: "Violence is never the answer. Period... I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Reports Target Israeli Army for 'Unprecedented Massacre' of Gaza Journalists
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of Reporters Without Borders.
Dec 12, 2024
Reports released this week from two organizations that advocate for journalists underscore just how deadly Gaza has become for media workers.
Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
Bruttin added that "many of these reporters were clearly identifiable as journalists and protected by this status, yet they were shot or killed in Israeli strikes that blatantly disregarded international law. This was compounded by a deliberate media blackout and a block on foreign journalists entering the strip."
When counting the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army since October 2023 in both Gaza and Lebanon, the tally comes to 155—"an unprecedented massacre," according to the roundup.
Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
Meanwhile, in a statement released Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) announced that at least 139 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since the war in Gaza began in 2023, and in a statement released Wednesday, IFJ announced that 104 journalists had perished worldwide this year (which includes deaths from January 1 through December 10). IFJ's number for all of 2024 appears to be higher than RSF because RSF is only counting deaths that occurred "on the job or in connection with their work."
IFJ lists out each of the slain journalists in its 139 count, which includes the journalist Hamza Al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh, who was killed with journalist Mustafa Thuraya when Israeli forces targeted their car while they were in northern Rafah in January 2024.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular