ON JUNE 1st a pressure group called “Reclaim the Power” organised a day of action against the energy industry in Britain, including blockades of offices, protests at art galleries sponsored by oil firms and a 1960s-style “love-in” in which agitators lay in a bed outside one of David Cameron’s offices in an effort to persuade the prime minister to become greener.
Their actions were part of a wider campaign, marshalled by 350.org, that seeks to dissuade investors from owning shares in the companies that produce fossil fuels and thus contribute to climate change. So far the protesters have managed to persuade 220 cities and institutions to divest some of their holdings, varying from the very small (the Australian Guild of Screen Composers) to the large (the $21 billion endowment of Stanford University). This month the campaign landed its biggest recruit yet: Norway’s sovereign-wealth fund, which has assets of almost $900 billion, agreed to sell $9 billion-worth of shares in firms that mine coal and tar sands, a particularly polluting form of oil.
Divestment is not a new idea. A campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa got...Continue reading
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