Now is the time for UK to divest from fossil fuels and slow down climate change
Recently, a picture of clear water in Venice has opened discussion about how the COVID-19 pandemic is slowing pollution across the globe. In fact, National Geographic reports that carbon emissions in China are down by about 18 percent. The widespread reduction in pollution has given people hope that, with responsive action, we could restore the Earth and live in a low-pollution world. We have the choice now to make this change.
So what can be done to ensure a world with less pollution ... all the time? We have one answer. The University of Kentucky’s endowment is a pool of donations that the university invests to pay for things like scholarships and facilities. Currently, about $100 million of this endowment are invested in fossil fuel companies, according to a Kentucky Kernel article from last December. Divesting from fossil fuels—that is, pulling those $100 million out of the fossil fuel industry — would allow the University, instead, to invest in renewable energy, providing a better chance at combating climate change and creating a sustainable future.
Divest UK, our on-campus branch of the international divestment movement, began campaigning in the spring semester of 2018. For two years, we’ve been petitioning and speaking with decision-makers about divesting. Last semester, we even staged a protest in the Gatton Student Center. Yet, none of our four demands have been met. We have asked that the University:
▪ Divest from the Carbon Underground 200 (the biggest fossil fuel companies on the exchange)
▪ Re-invest in sustainable industries
▪ Include social and environmental goals, as well as fiduciary responsibility, in their decision-making processes
▪ Make the contents of the endowment portfolio accessible for students
Yet, their allocation of over 1.5 billion dollars remains partly in the hands of climate change profiteers.
Even as COVID-19 has emptied the campus of students, our movement will not disappear. Many students at universities across the country— including students with Divest WKU and Divest UofL—are waging the same fight. Stanford students created Fossil Free Stanford; Harvard students are calling for their University to disclose investments, divest from the fossil fuel industry entirely, and reinvest in environmentally and socially responsible funds. These campaigns have received a great deal of media attention, but a huge coalition of campuses, including MIT, Yale, Boston, Georgetown, and the University of Illinois, as well as schools overseas, are also fighting for fossil-free endowments. The divestment movement is constantly growing across Kentucky and the globe.
We are at a pivotal point in our history. We could either continue, business as usual, and face catastrophic, needless disasters. Or we could act now: organize and put an end to the fossil fuel industry corrupting our world, push for divestment, and help grassroots organizations (like Divest UK, Divest WKU, and Divest UofL) do what they can to fight this problem. By taking money away from the main drivers of the coming ecological catastrophe, we can limit the impact climate change will have on our lives and prevent further calamity.
Alyssa Archer is the co-coordinator of UK Greenthumb.