Vector Volume 11 Issue 2 - 2017

Western institutions including Brown University divested;
however, other investors interested in the nation’s
valuable resources simply filled their place. Drawing from
this rather unsuccessful campaign, fossil free activists
are encouraged to consider how their actions could lead
to the success or failure of the divestment movement.
More specifically, it is important to weigh the impact of
divesting from a company relative to giving up your voice
as a shareholder.
Fuelling a movement
Nevertheless, the balance scales show that
divestment is well worth the bet. Major goals of the
fossil fuel divestment campaign can be captured in the
following:[4]
a) leverage the power of investors and institutions to
make strong political statements and influence policy
change
b) raise awareness of the impact of the fossil fuel
industry in our society
c) lead the market to consider the effects of climate
change when evaluating any investments
d) drive capital investment into clean energy and
other climate mitigation strategies
Above all else, divestment stigmatises the fossil fuel
industry, eroding its social license to operate and posing
the largest threat to these companies.
Back home, Australian universities are making
bold statements with the help of several fossil free
organisations on campus. La Trobe University, Swinburne
University and the Queensland University of Technology
pledged to divest their A$40 million, A$150 million and
A$300 million portfolios from fossil fuels respectively.
[7] Recently, both Monash University and the Australian
National University have partially divested.[8] But sadly,
Westpac, ANZ, NAB and the Commonwealth Bank –
which make up the ‘big four’ banks of Australia — have
failed to divest, instead funding the industry to the tune of
A$5.5 billion in 2015.[7]
the ‘carbon bubble’ has its
underlying roots in the fact that
our financial markets maintain
an extraordinary overvaluation
of fossil fuel reserves that has
the potential to burst.
Pop goes the bubble
From an economic point of view, fossil fuel divestment
is falsely thought to come with financial uncertainty and
major repercussions. Addressing this, a key argument
in the fossil fuel divestment campaign is that returns
will, in fact, improve once investors have divested – an
And, if you have not figured it out yet, the fossil fuel
divestment campaign is not a normal movement. There
are no great leaders. There is no Gandhi or Martin Luther
King Jr. of the climate movement. But, establishing firm
roots in society, the fossil fuel movement is set to be
colossal with or without a figurehead.
...divestment stigmatises the
fossil fuel industry, eroding its
social license to operate and
posing the largest threat to
these companies.
Blossoming ideas
Since its initial conception in 2010, the idea of fossil
fuel divestment has been spreading like wildfire. The
campaign celebrated its first major victory in mid-2014
when Stanford University committed to divesting its
US$18.7 billion endowment from the industry.[5] Later that
year, the campaign inspired the People’s Climate March
where a 400,000-strong crowd flooded Manhattan’s
streets, demanding U.N. action on global warming.[4] By
2015, around 2500 investors representing US$2.6 trillion
in assets had divested, including major organisations
such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Canadian
Medical Association.[6]
Figure 1: Global health groups are leading the fossil fuel divestment game
with eight societies having divested; while, only three medical societies have
divested so far.
18