{"id":13259,"date":"2018-07-25T09:05:16","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T13:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=13259"},"modified":"2018-07-25T09:06:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T13:06:35","slug":"emerald-isle-goes-green-ireland-just-voted-to-divest-from-fossil-fuel-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=13259","title":{"rendered":"Emerald Isle Goes Green: Ireland just voted to divest from fossil fuel companies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .<\/p>\n

An article by Casey O\u2019Brien for the Sierra Club<\/a> \u00a92018 Sierra Club. All Rights Reserved – reproduced from a Sierra Club website with permission of the Sierra Club<\/p>\n

The global fossil fuel divestment movement just got a huge push from an unexpected place\u2014Ireland. On July 12, Ireland became the first country to vote to shed its financial holdings in oil, gas, and coal corporations. The measure calling for the country to sell off its estimated $370 million in fossil fuel investments \u201cas soon as is practicable\u201d passed the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland with support from all parties. The vote marks a major milestone in the effort to move capital away from the largest carbon polluters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\nPeople celebrate July 12 after the passage of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill in Ireland. (Mark Stedman). Photo from National Catholic Reporter<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the next step in a progression . . . of what people considered impossible and unprecedented, but it makes perfect sense that that\u2019s what\u2019s happening,\u201d said Andrew Behar, CEO of the socially responsible investment firm\u00a0As You Sow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s move is the latest surge in the rising tide of the divestment movement, which now includes universities across the United States,\u00a0dozens of Catholic institutions, and New York City, which earlier this year announced it is investigating selling off its fossil fuel holdings.\u00a0Go Fossil Free, a group that advocates for fossil fuel divestment, estimates that $6.15 trillion worth of fossil fuel assets have been sold off since the movement started in 2010. \u201cFirst we had student movements, then we had mission-driven organizations\u2014faith based and philanthropy\u2014and now we have entire countries,\u201d said Clara Vondrich, global director of\u00a0Divest Invest, which provides institutions with guidance on how to move their money away from fossil fuel corporations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The move surprised some people, as Ireland has something of a reputation for being slow to act on climate, in comparison to other European nations.\u00a0Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org,\u00a0tweeted\u00a0that the news of the vote \u201cstaggered him.\u201d The\u00a0Climate Action Network\u00a0recently declared Ireland the second-worst country in the EU for climate change management.\u00a0The only other country to consider such a move is much-wealthier Norway, which has proposed divesting its $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund but hasn\u2019t done so yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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Divestment: is it an effective tool to promote sustainable development?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Ireland\u2019s vote is particularly important because it reflects a major shift in the divestment movement, Vondrich explained. Originally, fossil fuel divestment was entirely driven by moral concerns\u2014institutions pulled their money out of oil, gas, and coal companies because they didn\u2019t want to be contributing to the destruction of a stable climate. Now, divestment is increasingly seen as a smart financial move for investors; Ireland\u2019s divestment is as much a fiduciary decision as it is a chance to demonstrate its principles. \u201cThe divestment movement now stands on a strong three-legged stool of moral, fiduciary, and financial arguments,\u201d Vondrich said. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A recent\u00a0report\u00a0by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) illustrates Vondrich\u2019s point. The report states, \u201cThe financial case for fossil fuel divestment is strong. Over the past three and five years, respectively, global stock indexes without fossil fuel holdings have outperformed otherwise identical indexes that include fossil fuel companies. Fossil fuel companies once led the economy and world stock markets. They now lag.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Energy stocks were the second-worst performing sector in 2017, states IEEFA\u2019s report, outpaced by health, technology, and other industries even as the price of oil stabilized from a low of $28 a barrel in 2016 to $75 today. Fossil fuel companies\u2019 relatively weak performance is crucial, given that some investment institutions are required, by their charters, to prioritize profit performance and fiduciary responsibility above all other concerns. Ireland\u2019s vote, Vondrich said, solidifies the argument that divestment is the financially savvy choice for investment managers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Ireland\u2019s vote only affects a relatively small amount of money (as national investment funds go), Behar and Vondrich agree that it carries significant symbolic value. \u201cWhat started on a handful of college campuses is now the policy of nations,\u201d Vondrich said. \u201cIreland’s pledge to divest takes the movement to the next level, where activists and heads of state work hand-in-hand to save the world.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Behar said, \u201cThis is a political statement. The fund is relatively small . . . but I think that having it decided in that venue is really important. It\u2019s sort of like when California decided that they wanted CalPERS, the pension fund, to divest. That was a vote in the California legislature.\u201d Behar continued, \u201cI would equate it to when the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation made [their divestment] announcement at the 2014 climate summit in New York. That was a major moment, when the heirs of the Exxon fortune said, \u2018We\u2019re going to sell our Exxon [stocks].\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vondrich said the strategy going forward is to continue to push for divestment decisions as well as divest-invest pledges in which divested funds are reinvested in enterprises committed to\u00a0sustainability and clean energy. Ultimately, the goal is to demonstrate that buying shares of fossil fuel corporations is not a wise investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fossil fuel industry is really in the long term, nonviable. So you want to get out as early as possible,\u201d Behar said. \u201cOur goal is removing the social license for these companies to exist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . . An article by Casey O\u2019Brien for the Sierra Club \u00a92018 Sierra Club. All Rights Reserved – reproduced from a Sierra Club website with permission of the Sierra Club The global fossil fuel divestment movement just got a huge push from an unexpected place\u2014Ireland. On July 12, Ireland became the … Continue reading Emerald Isle Goes Green: Ireland just voted to divest from fossil fuel companies<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,10],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-13259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-sustainable","tag-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}