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The Guardian view on climate change: keep it in the ground The Guardian view on climate change: keep it in the ground
(about 4 hours later)
“Giving with the one hand and taking with the other.” The words of Professor Anne Glover, on the contradiction at the heart of the way the world’s two largest health charities invest their money. The former chief scientific adviser to the European commission neatly summed up her puzzlement over two of the world’s most incredible organisations – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – on climate change. Both have contributed hugely to progress in medicine and both are mindful of the grave dangers of climate change for public health. Yet both continue to invest in the companies driving the problem. Both spend millions each year on research and healthcare, but sink a chunk of their billions in capital into energy systems that will undo the work. “Giving with the one hand and taking with the other.” The words of Professor Anne Glover, on the contradiction at the heart of the way the world’s two largest health charities invest their money. The former chief scientific adviser to the European commission neatly summed up her puzzlement over two of the world’s most incredible organisations – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – on climate change. Both have contributed hugely to progress in medicine and both are mindful of the grave dangers of climate change for public health. Yet both continue to invest in the companies driving the problem. Both spend millions each year on research and healthcare, but sink a chunk of their billions in capital into energy systems that will undo the work.
In March, the Guardian in partnership with 350.org launched Keep it in the ground, a campaign for fossil fuel divestment, a call made in parallel with stepped-up climate reporting ahead of December’s crunch UN talks in Paris. Civil society must press statesmen and women to thrash out a package that is up to the task, but how better for it to do that than to put its own money where its mouth is? Since the campaign began, signing up 200,000 supporters in 170 countries, Syracuse University, the Church of England and Guardian Media Group itself are among the many organisations who have pledged to divest. They join more than 200 other outfits to have taken similar steps, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which was built on the profits of JD Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. In March, the Guardian in partnership with 350.org launched Keep it in the ground, a campaign for fossil fuel divestment, a call made in parallel with stepped-up climate reporting ahead of December’s crunch UN talks in Paris. Civil society must press statesmen and women to thrash out a package that is up to the task, but how better for it to do that than to put its own money where its mouth is? Since the campaign began, signing up 200,000 supporters in 170 countries, Syracuse University, the Church of England and Guardian Media Group itself are among the many organisations who have pledged to divest. They join more than 200 other outfits to have taken similar steps, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which was built on the profits of JD Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.
Critics of divestment point out that the companies will never be bankrupted: any shares sold will be bought by someone else. They charge, too, that divesters are hypocrites, since we all rely on an economy that would itself collapse without gas, oil and coal. There is no denying we need fossil fuel energy for now, especially in poorer parts of the world, but the critique misreads the argument. Going cold turkey is plainly impossible; the burning issue, as with anti-apartheid divestment in the past, is to dent the standing of the companies involved, and curb their vast lobbying power. These companies are legitimate targets because they are a brake on changes that the world needs. The great bulk of existing fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground if we are to avoid climate catastrophe. And yet the big carbon companies continue to spend billions on prospecting for more hydrocarbons, taking the hunt to the ends of the Earth in the Arctic. Their business plans would guarantee “severe, widespread and irreversible impacts” in the words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They have only to revise these plans, to make them compatible with less extreme warming, to see off the case for divestment. Critics of divestment point out that the companies will never be bankrupted: any shares sold will be bought by someone else. They charge, too, that divesters are hypocrites, since we all rely on an economy that would itself collapse without gas, oil and coal. There is no denying we need fossil fuel energy for now, especially in poorer parts of the world, but the critique misreads the argument. Going cold turkey is plainly impossible; the burning issue, as with anti-apartheid divestment in the past, is to dent the standing of the companies involved, and curb their vast lobbying power. These companies are legitimate targets because they are a brake on changes that the world needs. The great bulk of existing fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground if we are to avoid climate catastrophe. And yet the big carbon companies continue to spend billions on prospecting for more hydrocarbons, taking the hunt to the ends of the Earth in the Arctic. Their business plans would guarantee “severe, widespread and irreversible impacts” in the words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They have only to revise these plans, to make them compatible with less extreme warming, to see off the case for divestment.
Professor Glover and Christiana Figueres, the UN’s broker-in-chief for the Paris talks, are worldly people. They back divestment not as naive impossiblists, but precisely because they grasp a political reality – that divestment strengthens the arm of those who want meaningful action. Both Wellcome and Gates – which, incidentally, funds the Guardian’s global development site – claim to screen investments to fit with their noble goals. But this week the Guardian has revealed ugly secrets about some of the companies that one or both of them invest in. We’ve uncovered an oil company, BP, allegedly linked to kidnap and torture in Colombia; an oil services company, Schlumberger, breaking sanctions in Iran and Sudan; another oil major, Shell, planning for catastrophic temperature rises; and a coal giant, Peabody, using Ebola to advance commercial aims. Do Wellcome and Gates wish to be associated with such behaviour? If not, it is time to divest. Professor Glover and Christiana Figueres, the UN’s broker-in-chief for the Paris talks, are worldly people. They back divestment not as naive impossiblists, but precisely because they grasp a political reality – that divestment strengthens the arm of those who want meaningful action. Both Wellcome and Gates – which, incidentally, funds the Guardian’s global development site – claim to screen investments to fit with their noble goals. But this week the Guardian has revealed ugly secrets about some of the companies that one or both of them invest in. We’ve uncovered an oil company, BP, allegedly linked to kidnap and torture in Colombia; an oil services company, Schlumberger, breaking sanctions in Iran and Sudan; another oil major, Shell, planning for catastrophic temperature rises; and a coal giant, Peabody, using Ebola to advance commercial aims. Do Wellcome and Gates wish to be associated with such behaviour? If not, it is time to divest.