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From Apartheid to Climate Crisis: why we need a student-led divestment movement
Fossil Free UCL members about to meet with management over divestment demands
43 years ago, the NUS and the AAM (Anti-Apartheid Movement) established a network that would go on to help nearly all UK University unions organize some form of protest against apartheid in South Africa. Students played an instrumental role in generating nationwide support for the historic boycott. They led by example: over half the UK’s higher education institutions were put under pressure to break all ties by divesting shares in South African businesses. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu suggested that university divestment was a catalyst for the eventual end to the oppressive regime in 1994.
Now the magnifying glass is turned to the fossil fuel industry. Desmond Tutu is calling for widespread divestment, and a reduction in the powerful influence that these companies have over all areas of our lives. Fossil Free UK, lead by national student network People & Planet, is a platform from which student bodies can organize their own campus campaigns to break all ties with fossil fuel companies, and those that invest heavily in them. The NUS, on this occasion, is unfortunately nowhere to be seen, as it failed to discuss a fossil fuel divestment motion proposed at last week’s Liverpool conference.
Like the protests against apartheid, the campaign against the fossil fuel industry is a question of justice and ethics. Research carried out by academics, and funded by universities and the public purse, highlights the dangerous effects of anthropogenic climate change, and yet the institutions’ investment committees turn a blind eye. Whilst a recent IPCC report underlined climate change as a threat to global security, food and humankind, universities work alongside fossil fuel companies to promote work experience and career trajectories.
Fossil fuel exploration will not be halted without a clear vote of no-confidence from us. We have four times the amount proven oil, gas and coal reserves that we can realistically afford to burn. Practical limitations are not going to stop these companies from omitting deadly amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, so it’s up to us to stop it.
A group of students at my university, University College London, has been campaigning for divestment since the start of the 2013/2014 academic year. Thus far, we have submitted a report to UCL’s Ethical Investment Review Committee proposing a full divestment of direct and indirect funding in the fossil fuel industry. The hypocrisy of UCL’s guiding principles compared to its investment portfolio is fore-grounded: on the one hand, the university seeks to ‘conduct itself ethically and fairly, and in an environmentally sustainable manner, locally, nationally and globally’, but on the other hand, it invests around £10 million in destructive companies like Shell, BHP Billiton and Halliburton. The proposal is currently under examination.
This campaign can only be successful if students across the country rally together and put pressure on their universities. Nationally over 12,000 students have got involved in 46 new campus campaigns in the last six months alone. This is great, but it’s not enough. National and International students need to work together to make a difference. For example, Fossil Free UCL has contacted the president of UCLU Vietnamese Society, who have links to countries that have seen terrible destruction and flooding and are at risk of even worse devastation, and yet we have had no response from them.
Perhaps this campaign is not being met with student apathy so much as doubt over the financial repercussions of moving our shares. Talking to a student ambassador for Exxon Mobil, he asked me whether people would be able to afford to heat their homes if there was a changeover to renewable energy sources. Well, yes, they would: our energy prices are set in collaboration with the EU and at the moment the price of gas is increasing whereas the price of renewables is decreasing. Green energy guarantees a sustainable decrease in bills, and such a changeover would stimulate manufacturing and jobs in Britain. Ultimately, divestment will demonstrate universities respect for the academics that they employ, and their awareness that our society cannot continue to be driven on fossil fuels whilst the effects of climate change are being felt all over the world.
Posted by Lulu Shooter, a student at University College London and member of Fossil Free UCL
Source: http://blog.peopleandplanet.org/blog/2014/04/28/from-apartheid-to-climate-crisis-why-we-need-a-student-led-divestment-movement/
