Over the past two decades more than 150 lawsuits have been brought against American and foreign corporations accused of violating international law, including human-rights abuses, in more than 60 foreign countries. Most of them have been dismissed or settled out of court. Of the four that have gone to trial, only one resulted in victory for the victims. Yet multinationals increasingly live in fear of alien tort suits, as much because of the negative publicity as because of the high costs involved.
The present case, Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell), was brought against the Anglo-Dutch oil giant by 12 Nigerians, who accuse it of complicity in crimes against humanity, including extra-judicial killings and torture, carried out by the Nigerian dictatorship of General Sani Abacha in the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta in the 1990s. In 2009 Shell agreed to pay $15.5m to the families, now living in America, of nine Nigerian activists, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, an author and playwright, who were executed by the government in 1995 after violent protests over the construction of a pipeline in the Ogoni region.
Shell, which denies any wrongdoing, now argues that the Alien Tort Act should not apply to corporations, even American ones, and furthermore should not cover violations committed outside American jurisdiction. In 2010 a sharply divided 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Kiobel, agreeing that the law did not apply to companies. The issue of extraterritoriality was not raised until the first hearings, on appeal, before the Supreme Court in February this year. Then, as now, several justices sounded sceptical about the law’s purported universal reach.
Welcome!
Hi there, and thanks for your interest in kicking off a Fossil Fuel Divestment campaign on your campus. We’re in the first stages of putting this project together, so we don’t have a lot of resources available, but we wanted to put a few key pieces in one place so that you can kick things off. Stay tuned for an upcoming full-fledged Divestment in a Box toolkit that is forthcoming.
Here’s the Plan: We want College and University Presidents and Boards (as well as Religious and Pension funds) to immediately freeze any new investment in fossil fuel companies, and divest from direct ownership and any commingled funds that include fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds within 5 years.
200 publicly-traded companies hold the vast majority of the world’s proven coal, oil and gas reserves. Those are the companies we’re asking our institutions to divest from. Our demands to these companies are simple, because they reflect the stark truth of climate science:
As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, concerns, or just want to tell us we’re doing a good job, shoot us an email at div...@350.org. Onwards!
Key Reports and Articles
Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math - Bill McKibben (in Rolling Stone)
Unburnable Carbon - Carbon Tracker Initiative
Spreadsheets, Lists and Charts
List of top 200 Coal, Gas and Oil companies, by proven carbon reserves
List of US and Canadian University and College endowments
List of Ongoing Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaigns
Guides and Toolkits
Fossil Fuel Divestment Frequently Asked Questions (DRAFT)
Responsible Endowments Coalition Student Handbook
Energy Action Coalition Coal Divestment website
Links
Responsible Endowments Coalition
Sustainable Endowments Institute
This weekend Harvard students voted overwhelmingly in favor of divesting their school's $40 billion endowment from fossil fuels.The vote was non-binding, but the message to their administration is clear: no more investing in companies out to wreck our future.Click LIKE to thank Divest Harvard for their hard work! visit http://gofossilfree.org/ to start a campaign in your community!
So, if the universities all divest, what might this do? It might lower the price of stock a little bit. That’s not going to hurt their profitability. It can—you know, there’s a way in which, early on, there was an element of miseducation unintentionally involved in this. And I think one of the few things that progressive movements can guarantee—we can’t guarantee victory, but we can guarantee a good political education. So, I think we have to be realistic about what divestment will achieve. And you have the direct impact of lowering the fossil fuel—the stock prices of fossil fuel companies. What will that do? I don’t think it will do that much to hurt them. You have the other aspect, the indirect aspect, which is this huge spectacle of students mobilizing. How can that be turned into real political power? And I argue that, ultimately—and I don’t know how exactly—it comes down, I think, to state action. If you look at the anti-apartheid movement, you look at the tobacco campaign, ultimately what happens is that governments step in. In the anti-apartheid struggle, 25 states imposed trade sanctions on South Africa, including the U.S. Reagan tried to veto this; he was overridden by the Senate. That’s what really turned the tide, and divestment was part of that. Tobacco—when do people stop smoking? When states start banning the sale and use of tobacco. That’s when people start quitting smoking and the profits go down. So I think we have to be realistic about what the limits and also the real possibilities of divestment are."
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/2/will_350org_fossil_fuel_divestment_campaign#transcript
VICTORIA - Financial documents show the University of Victoria (UVic) has more than $4 million in pension funds invested in Enbridge Inc. and over $50 million invested in tar sands and other oil and gas producers and transporters.
Enbridge is the company behind the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline – which if approved would ship over half a million barrels of diluted bitumen from Edmonton to Kitimat every day. The proposed pipeline and tanker route would cut through the heart of the last intact temperate rainforest on Earth, expose the entire BC coast to the risk of an oil tanker spill, and fuel the expansion of the Alberta tar sands – the dirtiest industrial project in the world. Public hearings on the highly contested and unpopular pipeline are occurring this week in Victoria and next week in Vancouver."
It’s the beginning of the second semester, and over at Fossil Free we’re kicking it off with style. At over 230 campuses, students are hitting the ground running, planning action-packed semesters of divesment campaigning. In just the last two weeks students at schools like Harvard, RISD, Tufts, the Claremont colleges, and many others have met with key administrators and Trustees to push for fossil fuel divestment.
We’ve garnered big spreads in The New York Times and Boston Globe, and we’re working with partners to organize convergences and activist trainings across the country. It even seems we’ve ruffled a few feathers in the fossil industry itself: Big Oil front group API released a study last week showing that oil stocks are good investments. Check out our rebuttal here (pdf attached).
But even as we continue to make the case for divestment on campus, we’re connecting to the larger fight for a safe climate: fossil free activists in Massachusetts and Texas continue to take courageous direct action to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, and thousands gathered in Portland, ME over the weekend to stop a tar sands pipeline through New England.
Just as pushing for fossil fuel divestment on campus is a key tool in our toolbox, coming together for mass actions—like the #ForwardonClimate rally in Washington, DC, next month—will help hold our elected leaders responsible for climate action too. Click here to join us in Washington on February 17th, and stay tuned for more on how to connect with other divestment activists while you’re there.
We don’t have much time: Sir Nichloas Stern, a top climate economist who wrote a widely-read report in 2006 had this to say: “I got it wrong on climate--it’s far, far worse.” [1] That’s why over the next few months, we need to go big. We need as many students, alumni, faculty, and staff as possible signed onto campus campaigns; we need to push for fossil fuel divestment at even more campuses, as well as through other kinds of institutions like houses of worship and municipal governments.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out a bunch of new tools at gofossilfree.org, from powerpoint presentations to reports on alternative investment to easy-to-read climate factsheets and guides. And, we’ll be working with our partners to run workshops across the country where you can build your organizing, media, and direct action skills.
This weekend, student activists will gather at Swarthmore College for the Power Up! Convergence. Even as we're getting ready to launch our broader divestment work, students are gearing up to really take the campus movement to the next level. Click here to watch a livestream of tomorrow's keynote speakers (livestream starts Saturday at 7:30 EST).
Socially responsible investment funds hold their own
We'd like to open up the GoFossilFree.org blog to a wider group of writers and bring in some more diverse voices. Want to be one of them?If you've got updates from your campus, stories from the movement, or longer-form pieces you'd like to share with the Fossil Free community, you should apply for a blogger spot! To apply, please email div...@gofossilfree.org with:
- Your name, year, and campus
- Your divestment group & role with that group, if applicable
- A few sentences about what kind of content you'd like to post and how often (we'd prefer regular posts, e.g. 2-3 times/month, but one-offs are fine too if you've got a burning topic to pitch)
- A link or attachment with a writing sample (ideally less formal, non-academic nonfiction)
Not at all sure how many of you are gonna jump at this opportunity, but we'll try to get back to you as soon as possible!Thanks everyone,Allyse
You are invited to join the conversation on fossil-free pensions: why it's necessary and how it can be pursued. Next Weds, June 19, at 1pm pacific / 4pm eastern, RSVP below.MEDIA ADVISORY
How Can Pension Funds Reduce Risk, Be More Responsible, and
Pursue Divesting from Fossil Fuels?
350.org, HIP Investor, First Affirmative & Mayors Innovation Project
Co-Host Free Webinar on Climate Risk Reduction & Fossil-Free Investing
SAN FRANCISCO – More than 10 cities have committed to reducing risk, be more responsible in their investing, and divest fossil-fuel energy firms from their portfolios. How can pension funds achieve their risk-reduction goal swiftly?
On Wednesday, June 19, 2013, a coalition of city leaders, investment managers, pension consultants, and divestment campaigners will host an online webinar to present the findings from the new report “Resilient Portfolios & Fossil-Free Pensions” on adapting city and state pension funds for resiliency to 21st century risks, and the paths to drastically reducing or eliminating fossil fuel exposure.
Climate change and the fossil fuel industry’s current business plan pose a pressing risk to city and state pension funds. If pension funds remain tied to past assumptions and ignore emerging trends, they could soon face increased risks and potentially severe losses to their portfolios.
More than 10 cities across New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Vermont, Washington, Oregon and California have already committed to pursue fossil fuel divestment as part of a growing divestment campaign, which builds on the spread of divestment advocated on more than 300 campuses and engaged with more than 100 cities, states and religious institutions.
This free, online webinar will be valuable for city, county, and state pension fund trustees, fiduciaries, and investment professionals, as well as, leaders, managers and staff of forward thinking municipalities and regional governments.
RSVP registration for this event is free and can be completed at:
http://www.divestment.eventbrite.com/
WHAT: “How to Reduce Climate Risk and Go Fossil-Free in Pension Funds”: free, online webinar, featuring 350.org, HIP Investor, First Affirmative & Mayors Innovation Project
WHEN: Wednesday, June 19, 2013, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. EDT / 1:00 - 2:00 pm PDT
WHO:
Satya Rhodes-Conway, Senior Associate of the Mayors Innovation Project, Madison, WI;
Steve Schueth, President of First Affirmative Financial Network, Boulder, CO;
R. Paul Herman, CEO of HIP Investor Inc., San Francisco, CA;
Jay Carmona, Divestment Campaigner with 350.org, Oakland, CA;
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For More Information:
Jay Carmona, 350.org, 510-502-0752, j...@350.org