The world’s oil giants guilty of ‘greenwash’

From: Andrea Needham, Milward Road, Hastings
Gloabal warmingGloabal warming
Gloabal warming

You report the claim by East Sussex Pension Committee chair Gerard Fox that shareholder ‘engagement’ with fossil fuel companies is ‘a more effective way of addressing climate change’ than divesting from fossil fuels (Pension fund fossil fuel fossil fuels will continue, 16 July).

In reality, decades of ‘engagement’ with these companies has resulted in little more than greenwash, as the oil giants like Shell and BP seek to further delay the decarbonisation process that threatens their core business model: digging fossil fuels out of the ground so that they can be burned.

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Failure to keep global warming to 1.5°C would be catastrophic. Yet according to the Transition Pathway Initiative – an investor initiative whose members represent over $27 trillion in assets - not a single major fossil fuel company has yet re-aligned its business model with a 2ºC world, let alone a 1.5ºC one. Moreover, there are no precedents for a company changing its core business model following pressure from shareholders.

A public commitment to divest the East Sussex Pension Fund from fossil fuel companies would send a powerful signal to policymakers that they finally need to get serious about tackling the climate emergency, which will require the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels.

By clinging on to its remaining investments in fossil fuel companies, the East Sussex Pension Fund is missing a huge opportunity to show real leadership on the climate crisis.

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