EcoNut: Divesting – Cities sell off fossil fuel stocks

Great piece by my favorite EcoNut, Barbara Hirsch!

Ecofacts V.13 n.6 Moving away from oil, slowly but surely

Certainly climate change has hit the major oil, coal and gas producers. Saudi Arabia, of all places, is beginning to invest in renewables, in the billions.

At the Paris climate summit two years ago, the funds divesting from fossil fuels were up to $3.4 trillion. To date that figure has nearly doubled to more than $6 trillion. To put this in perspective, this year, the U.S. Federal budget is $4 trillion.

Working to clean up their investments, the State of New York and New York City have joined tens of thousands of individuals and over 800 institutions –  local governments here and in Europe, churches, foundations, universities, nonprofits in divesting from “carbon majors”. A few notable examples are the London School of Economics, Stanford, a major philanthropic fund run by the Rockefeller family, much of which originated from oil, the Church of England,  Norway’s Government Pension Fund (also originally funded by oil), Paris.

As for the growth in green investing, there is a mutual fund now – the GMO Climate Change fund, that is clearly only for major and institutional investors. It’s minimum investment is $10 million!

Because of recent major flooding in the streets of Paris, that city is joining New York and others adding to the ranks of suits being filed against fossil fuel companies to begin to recover rising costs of climate change. Here is one study that will be their basis.

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Barbara Hirsch, eco-nut

Santa Barbara, California

“Unless someone like you cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss