Although fossil fuels have brought us tremendous value in the last two centuries, burning oil, gas and coal has created a serious emergency. Here, at SFU, many faculty, staff and students are rightly focused on the climate crisis. Yet, by holding investments in fossil fuel companies that are wrecking the climate, the university itself is undermining and slowing society’s transition to a safer, low-carbon society. We should call on SFU to end its investment in fossil fuels.
The global warming crisis has major implications for your life after SFU and the future of your career, health and family. Scientists — including many from SFU — are growing ever more alarmed by the damage we are doing to the climate.
By burning oil, gas, and coal, we move eons of stored carbon from the ground to our oceans and atmosphere, where it stays and holds more energy. This creates the greenhouse gases that warm our planet, changing and intensifying weather patterns and contributing to more extreme droughts, heat waves, floods, and storms. Scientists also forecast water and food shortages and increasing poverty and inequality as a result of climate change.
There is still hope, though. If we hope to avoid this dangerous and irreversible global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us we can’t burn more than 921 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. Yet, scientists widely agree that fossil fuel companies can extract at least twice as much — more than enough to cook our planet. And each day, they look for even more reserves in places like the Arctic, shale formations, and deep oceans.
SFU’s fossil fuel investments jeopardize their academic mission and contradicts its research and education
Groups as diverse as the International Energy Agency, HSBC bank, and 350.org say the vast majority of proven and probable fossil fuel reserves should remain unburned if we hope to avoid runaway climate change. One report by HSBC found that these unburnable reserves could reduce the market value of fossil fuel companies by up to 60 per cent. Institutions like SFU that directly or indirectly hold investments in these companies should be alarmed by the “carbon bubble” they face.
This growing understanding, along with concern for climate justice and defence, is why SFU faculty overwhelmingly voted to create a fossil free pension fund this fall. It’s why 70 institutional investors with over $3 trillion in assets asked fossil fuel companies to examine and disclose their exposure to this carbon bubble in October this year. Over 400 other schools, churches, funds, and 16 US cities, including Seattle and Providence, have already moved to end their investments in the top fossil fuel companies in the near future.
Sustainable SFU has joined this global movement for divestment and is calling on students, alumni, staff and faculty to be a part of it. We call on SFU to immediately freeze new investment in fossil fuel companies, fully end ownership in those companies over the next five years, and disclose the potential greenhouse gas emissions in SFU’s endowment and other investments.
If SFU does not change course, it will find itself with a portfolio of financially worthless fossil fuel assets. These investments jeopardize SFU’s academic mission and its research and education on climate change, clean energy, and public health.
Tell SFU we should be in the business of studying and slowing climate change, not funding the companies that cause it.
