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The milestone, one campaigner said, should "give hope to folks that we are making an impact."
An earlier version of this story said that 16,000 institutions had divested. The correct number is 1,600 and it has been updated to reflect that.
More than 1,600 institutions like universities, pension funds, and governments that hold more than $40.6 trillion in assets have now divested from fossil fuels, the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement announced Friday.
The announcement comes days after the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference wrapped with a call for "transitioning away from fossil fuels" but stopped short of agreeing to the stronger "phaseout" of oil, gas, and coal backed by climate advocates and frontline communities.
"This number is huge," Amy Gray, Stand.earth climate finance associate director and coordinator of the Climate Safe Pensions Network, told Common Dreams. To put it in perspective, $40.6 trillion is equal to a little less than half of global gross domestic product.
The scale of the divestments to date, said Gray, "should show and give hope to folks that we are making an impact and we are making a difference and changing things for the better, regardless of these elitist events where the everyday person and the folks in the Global South and other places are discounted."
A Decade of Divestment
Friday's update to the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Commitments Database reflects around a decade of organizing, Gray said. Organizers at 350.org started tracking divestment commitments when Gray and current Stand.earth climate finance director Richard Brooks worked there. When the pair moved to launch a climate finance team at Stand.earth, they brought the database with them.
While the divestment movement has seen ups and downs over that decade, Gray said it had picked up momentum over the last five or six years. In less than two years, the number of institutions divesting jumped by 120, holding a combined $1.4 trillion in assets.
"We've definitely seen a massive increase in divestment commitments as the divestment movement has built itself out and gotten stronger," Gray said.
"This milestone follows years of attempted shareholder engagement, now a proven futile strategy, with fossil fuel corporations hell-bent on our destruction."
Notable victories in 2023 included PMT, the largest private pension in the Netherlands; New York University, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Church of England.
The Church of England divestment was especially notable, Gray said, because of the statement that accompanied it. The church emphasized that it had tried to engage with the oil and gas companies it was invested in and urged them to adopt policies in line with the Paris agreement, but the companies did not change.
"The decision to disinvest was not taken lightly," Alan Smith, first church estates commissioner, said at the time. "Soberingly, the energy majors have not listened to significant voices in the societies and markets they serve and are not moving quickly enough on the transition. If any of these energy companies come into alignment with our criteria in the future, we would reconsider our position. Indeed, that is something we would hope for."
Gray remembered thinking at the time that it was the best divestment statement she'd ever read.
"It was really powerful," she said.
The Church of England wasn't the only institution that thought it could persuade Big Oil to change its ways without divesting.
"This milestone follows years of attempted shareholder engagement, now a proven futile strategy, with fossil fuel corporations hell-bent on our destruction," Brooks said in a statement. "Instead of financing climate chaos-causing fossil fuels, violence, and extraction, financial institutions like big banks and pension funds must protect people and planet alike, cutting ties with fossil fuels and reinvesting in proven community-led climate-safe solutions."
People vs. Fossil Fuels
The success of the divestment movement has been driven by "people power, 100%," Gray said.
This includes larger organizations like Stand.earth or the Sierra Club and big-name activists like Bill McKibben or former New York Comptroller Tom Sanzillo, but ultimately comes down to smaller grassroots efforts.
"It's the little group in Wisconsin that's working on divesting their pension fund," Gray said. "It's a small group in the Bay Area who is pressuring Citi or one of the big banks, and it's the kids at the colleges."
"Oil companies are finding it increasingly difficult to raise financing amid rising ESG and sustainability concerns."
There's evidence that all this activism is making a difference for the industry. The "cost of capital" for funding new fossil fuel projects has risen steeply in the last decade, from 8% to 10% to around 20% as of 2021, according to Bloomberg.
During the same time, the cost for financing renewables has dropped from that same 8% to 10% to between 3% and 5%.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Will Hares laid the divergence at the feet of the push for environmental and social governance (ESG) in investing.
"Oil companies are finding it increasingly difficult to raise financing amid rising ESG and sustainability concerns, while banks are under pressure from their own investors to reduce or eliminate fossil-fuel financing," Hares said.
Gray also added that Indigenous-led movements such as the Wet'suwet'en struggle against the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada have had a material impact on the industry.
The pipeline's costs have more than doubled during that time from an estimated $6.6 billion to $14.5 billion, CBC News reported this month.
At the same time, divesting from fossil fuels is actually a financial win for pension funds and other institutions: A study released this year by the University of Waterloo found that six U.S. pension funds would actually be $21 billion richer today if they had quit fossil fuels 10 years ago.
The Next 1,600
In the context of a disappointing outcome at COP28, President Joe Biden's greenlighting of drilling projects, and the specter of a second Trump presidency, the success of the divestment movement offers hope that climate campaigners can shift the world away from fossil fuels without needing to rely on international agreements or national legislation.
"It's not necessary to enact the change we need to see," Gray said. "We can change these systems of oppression from within."
Looking ahead to 2024, Gray thinks there's a good chance that California will finally pass legislation to divest its two pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, from fossil fuels. The two funds, the largest public pensions in the country, control a total of $685 billion, including more than $42 billion in fossil fuels.
"Even the person with the smallest amount of investments can get involved."
If California does pass the legislation, it will "cause a massive ripple effect," Gray said.
"If we're able to divest the two largest pension funds in the country, there's nothing we can't divest."
Another thing Gray expects to see is more coordination between the efforts to divest from both fossil fuels and the weapons industry, as more and more people react with shock watching U.S.-made and -funded arms devastating the people of Gaza.
"War is a climate issue," Gray said.
For people not yet involved in the divestment movement, Gray recommends signing up for email updates from Stand.earth or the Climate Safe Pensions Network and looking up local climate groups and going to a meeting.
"Even the person with the smallest amount of investments can get involved," Gray said. "Anybody can join the climate movement, and we're always ready to help folks take that step."
Even in times of heartache, we find hope and resolve in our collective work to hold polluters accountable for their destruction, and to reclaim, repair, and rebuild healthy and safe communities.
On the heels of COP28, where world governments finally recognized the need to “transition away from fossil fuels” but failed to acknowledge the inevitable phaseout, the global fossil fuel divestment movement surpassed a major milestone, already leading the way to a fossil free world: 1,600+ institutions, representing $40.6 trillion in assets, are cutting ties with the toxic energy of the past.
This is a stark reminder: When oil companies are corrupting world governments (see: COP28) we fail to move at the pace and scale the climate crisis requires—but people power gets the goods.
2023 saw record-breaking climate chaos around the world, from fires and floods, to deadly heat and smoke—and fossil fuel corporations and their financiers are responsible.
Divestment is one (powerful) tool in our toolbox to take on fossil fuel greed and transform our energy and financial systems to be community-led, accessible, and democratized.
Swiss pension fund CPEG, the U.K.’s Wiltshire Pension Fund, and the largest private pension in the Netherlands are the latest to join the unstoppable movement. In 2023 alone, major divestment commitments were made by the Church of England, New York University, the National Academy of Medicine, and Triodos Bank.
From Fossil Free Research to Fossil Free Careers, the intergenerational, interracial divestment movement has helped create the political and public space to reclaim our economy from fossil fueled interest. Not only is a world beyond fossil fuels possible, it’s happening right now—it’s time for fossil fuel executives and their financiers to stop holding us back.
According to the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Database, the world’s most comprehensive index of institutional fossil fuel divestment commitments managed by Stand.earth, divestment spans every sector of society—and continues to grow.
Surpassing 1,600 fossil fuel divestment commitments would not have been possible without millions of climate justice leaders and activists around the world, and countless economic, racial, and climate justice organizations. As the movement enters its 13th year, and sets sights on bigger victories, we also want to mark the steadfast support of Ellen Dorsey who is stepping down as head of the Wallace Global Fund (WGF). WGF has supported this movement from its inception, building upon the success of the Anti-Apartheid Divestment Movement.
From educational institutions and public pension funds, to faith-based and healthcare groups, to governments, nonprofits, and cultural institutions, major institutional investors have even reported consistent positive or neutral returns following divestment—despite broader economic volatility and insecurity.
More than a decade of data affirms that fossil fuel divestment is a winning financial strategy, including early adopters of divestment strategies reporting neutral or positive financial results. This follows years of attempted shareholder engagement, now a proven futile strategy, with fossil fuel corporations hell-bent on our destruction.
This includes Danish pension AkademikerPension, which engaged in a rigorous and transparent shareholder engagement process with fossil fuel companies, dropping the final oil major from its portfolio—Italian oil company Eni—because “top management in the oil and gas sector simply refuse to do so in manner consistent with the goals of the Paris agreement.”
Notably in its decision, AkademikerPension reported positive financial returns after shedding the last major oil and gas investments.
If 1,600+ institutional commitments doesn’t convince you, let’s look to the International Energy Agency (IEA): In its annual World Energy Outlook 2023 report released in October, the IEA revealed that our energy systems are already on track to transition off fossil fuels with demand decreasing significantly by 2030.
As IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said:
The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable. It’s not a question of “if,” it’s just a matter of “how soon”—and the sooner the better for all of us.
On top of this, a June 2023 foundational report from the University of Waterloo revealed that just six U.S. public pension funds would be $21 billion richer had they divested from fossil fuels a decade ago. This includes major pensions in the Climate Safe Pensions Network. Specifically, the two largest public pensions in the United States—CalPERS and CalSTRS collectively representing over $780 billion in assets—missed out on over $9.6 billion in returns.
Divestment is one (powerful) tool in our toolbox to take on fossil fuel greed and transform our energy and financial systems to be community-led, accessible, and democratized.
This strategy must be employed alongside solidarity with Indigenous and frontline fights to directly stop toxic and unnecessary and sovereignty-violating fossil fuel projects; together with the growing movement to stop the money pipeline from banks, pensions, and financial institutions to fossil fuel corporations; and with dozens of municipalities and states, most recently the state of California, launching lawsuits against major oil corporations for climate deception and damages.
Even in times of heartache, we find hope and resolve in our collective work to hold polluters accountable for their destruction, and to reclaim, repair, and rebuild healthy and safe communities.
Instead of financing climate chaos-causing fossil fuels, violence, and extraction, financial institutions like big banks and pension funds must protect people and the planet alike, cutting ties with fossil fuels and reinvesting in proven community-led climate-safe solutions. Together, the many will defeat the dirty money.
"We knew that the company didn't care, but we expected more from the family," one campaigner said.
The Cargill-MacMillan family refused to meet with a young Indigenous advocate who had traveled 4,000 miles to hand-deliver a letter calling on them to stop deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado grassland.
Security guards denied entry to 21-year-old Beka Saw Munduruku when she arrived at the driveway of the family's offices in Wayzata, Minnesota, on Thursday. The family had not responded to requests to arrange a meeting ahead of time.
"It is appalling that an emissary who traveled 4,000 miles to deliver an urgent message from her people would be treated with such dismissal and disrespect," Amazon Watch program director Christian Poirier said in a statement.
"The Cargill-MacMillan family has demonstrated that they are unconcerned with the impacts of the company's actions on those victimized by them."
Cargill is the world's largest agribusiness company, according to advocacy group Stand.earth. It is also family-owned, with around 88% of it controlled by approximately 20 people. The Cargill-MacMillans have the highest concentration of billionaires of any family worldwide and are the fourth-richest family in the U.S. While the company has made commitments to end deforestation and human rights abuses in its supply chain, Munduruku said that this hasn't been the experience of her community in the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon.
"In every region where Cargill operates, you are destroying the environment and driving out or threatening the communities who live there," Munduruku wrote in the letter she attempted to deliver Thursday.
In her letter, Munduruku called out a specific project of Cargill's: the 1,000-kilometer Ferrogrão railway that would cut a swath through the Amazon to transport soy grown in the Cerrado.
"Last year the forests and savannas of the Cerrado were destroyed at a rate of 8,000 acres a day," Munduruku wrote in her letter. "This is an area of destruction the size of your hometown of Minneapolis every five days."
Munduruku, who is a member of the Munduruku community and lives on Sawré Muybu Indigenous territory, is the first Indigenous Brazilian leader to visit Cargill on its home turf to protest its activities.
By refusing to see her, Stand.earth campaign director Mathew Jacobson said, "the Cargill-MacMillan family has demonstrated that they are unconcerned with the impacts of the company's actions on those victimized by them. And they are dismissive of all attempts to bring it to their attention."
"We knew that the company didn't care, but we expected more from the family," Jacobson continued. "It's high time the family intervenes. We hope that the family will choose to be remembered as one that made the world a better place, not a worse one."