Campaigners' '˜funeral' for fossil fuels in Hastings Old Town

The event, complete with coffin, sashes and decorated umbrellas aims to highlight climate change, with campaigners urging East Sussex County Council to stop investing people’s pensions in oil, coal and gas.

The mourners will be assembling at 1pm in Butlers Gap (The Giant Chessboard), George Street. Anyone wishing to participate is encouraged to dress in black and join the parade at the start point.

The event, organised by Fossil Free Hastings and Don’t Frack with Sussex. is part of a global week of action against fossil fuel companies, which includes events in South Africa, Finland and the Philippines.

The East Sussex Pension Fund, administered by the county council, holds the pensions for a wide range of organisations from across East Sussex, and is estimated to have more than £172m invested in the fossil fuels, say campaigners.

Beccy McCray, a spokeswoman for Don’t Frack with Sussex, said: “Unless we rapidly replace fossil fuels with cleaner sources of energy we’ll soon pass a danger point, with potentially disastrous consequences for many people and countries on Earth.

“That’s why fossil fuels need to stay dead and buried – it’s their funeral or ours.”

A spokesman for the East Sussex Pension Fund said divesting of assets in the energy sector would mean the fund’s ability to influence the direction of individual companies and the national and international energy sector would be ‘severely curtailed’.

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