“If it’s wrong to wreck the climate, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage.”
-Bill McKibben
What is Divestment?
Fossil fuel divestment has become the fastest growing and most widespread tactic employed by college and university students to fight climate injustice. Drawing upon a long history of university divestment campaigns from Apartheid South Africa to Sudan, students are demanding that their institutions immediately freeze new investments in the fossil fuel industry
(FFI) and completely rid their endowments of stocks in the top 200 fossil fuel companies (FFCs) with the largest reserves. Since the FFD Movement emerged out of a single campaign
at Swarthmore College in 2011, it has grown to over 560 campaigns globally, extending not only to other academic institutions but religious communities, cities and states, foundations and other institutions. Since then, 11 colleges, 27 religious institutions, 22 cities, 2 counties, 19 foundations, and 6 other institutions have committed to divestment. However, over 24 colleges and universities have rejected student divestment campaigns, claiming that divestment is too costly, it will not make an impact, and sustainability efforts are more effective methods for tackling climate change. Despite the challenges and setbacks, students are more committed than ever to winning their campaigns for FFD. So, the question is, why divestment?
The new and growing movement for fossil fuel divestment arose in response to the injustices perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry and continued policy gridlock. The FFD Movement is about creating strong networks of youth organizers to fight climate change and fossil fuel extraction, shifting the paradigm of climate activism from individualized sustainability efforts to collective political action, and recognizing climate change as a social justice issue. Though FFD has expanded to include non-academic institutions, students across the country are leading this movement on college and university campuses because they are employing creative tactics, generating significant dialogue around Climate Justice, engaging in solidarity organizing, and building strong networks between FFD campaigns and other Climate Justice organizations.
-Jess Grady-Benson, Student Divestment Leader
Our Campaign
The Claremont Colleges Divestment team is a group of students working together to fight the climate crisis and pursue social justice. We are part of theinternational divestment movement that is spreading across hundreds of campuses, cities, religious groups, pension funds, and other institutions.
The fossil fuel divestment campaign calls for the administrations of each of the Claremont Colleges to immediately freeze any new investments in fossil fuel companies, and to divest from
direct ownership and any commingled funds that include fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds within five years.
We believe our colleges, as educational institutions, must behave in a manner that is ethically consistent with their mission statements and the values they promote. It is unconscionable for schools, that claim to be preparing students for the future, to profit from an industry that is condemning our world to climate disaster. According to Joseph F. Keefe, CEO of PAX World Investments, “To accept the science on global warming, and to be committed to doing something about it, but to invest one’s resources in a way that wholly ignores that imperative, is the mother of all inconsistencies.”
As the effects of climate change grow more serious and humanity pours more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, we are running out of time to act. As students of the Claremont Colleges, we are claiming this movement as a critical issue of our time and are fighting for a sustainable environment, for climate justice for all people across the planet, and for a safe and livable future.