The University of Massachusetts Trustees are voting on June 15 whether to divest the university’s endowment from large oil and gas companies, having already voted to divest from coal. Spurred on by a creative and militant campaign by dedicated students and supported by large numbers of faculty and staff, UMass is likely to soon be the first public university in the U.S. to fully divest from greenhouse gas-producing energy sources. We’ll have one more reason to be proud of our local university.
Meanwhile, with much less fanfare, an even more significant effort for divesting from fossil fuels is underway in Massachusetts. Whereas UMass holdings in fossil fuels may be fairly modest, the state employees’ and teachers’ pension funds have $60.2 billion in assets and over $1.8 billion in fossil fuel stocks. Our state pension fund should not be investing in companies that promote an unhealthy planet and a non-sustainable future.
This is an urgent matter and divestment is one important strategy in moving away from our reliance on dirty energy. We know that the transition to renewable energy sources needs to happen more quickly than we thought. Several critical climate change models have been found to underestimate the feedback loops inherent in global warming. Without drastic action, we will be facing major sea level rise as well as more floods, droughts, disease, agricultural catastrophes and fires like the one in Alberta.
Legislation has been filed by Sen. Benjamin Downing for divestment, and a bill for a commission to study the issue before issuing a recommendation (H. 2372) is gaining traction in the legislature, having recently moved from the House Public Service Committee to the House Ways and Means Committee.
The Massachusetts pension fund was a leader in divesting from South Africa during the apartheid era. Similarly, the fund divested from tobacco (1997) and companies doing business in the Sudan (2007) and in Iran (2010). Massachusetts has long had a social conscience, so divesting from fossil fuels is a logical next step. But whereas earlier divestment efforts could conceivably be opposed by current and future pensioners who might have been worried that their pension may lose value, the opposite is true now. The two largest coal companies have already declared bankruptcy, oil prices have plummeted, and the movement to “keep it in the ground” is gaining strength worldwide. A September study by Trillium Asset Management showed that the pension fund lost over $500 million the previous year by not divesting. Divesting from fossil fuels now makes scientific, moral and fiscal sense.
But will divestment really make a difference? Yes! It helped speed the end to apartheid, and bit by bit, as more and more institutions divest, the message that fossil fuels are on their way out gets louder. While the economic impact of any one divestiture may be limited, the political impact is large. Last year, two Rockefeller Foundation funds committed to divest — that’s the same Rockefeller family that made its fortune in oil 100-plus years ago! Assets worth three trillion dollars have already been divested worldwide. Divestment serves to stigmatize and disempower the industry, making space for reforms like carbon pricing and reinvestment in clean energy sources.
Our community won a big victory recently in stopping the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Thousands of Franklin County residents made their voices heard because we understand the urgency of ending reliance on fossil fuels, and also understand that collectively we have the power to change the course of history. You can add your name to the call for having the largest pension fund in the state divest by calling House Ways and Means Chair Brian Dempsey 617-722-2990 (and by asking your legislators to call him). Let’s urge Chairman Dempsey to give a favorable report to H.2372, a bill that provides for a study and report on divestment by January 1, 2017 — and to add amendments to get coal divestment started immediately and to ensure that the composition of the study commission is balanced.
Ferd Wulkan has been active in the labor movement in western Massachusetts for 27 years and has lived in Montague for the past 20.