Why it’s time to freeze fossil fuels and tell our local councils to divest.

April 30, 2018

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We’re all on board with the fact that climate change is real, and it’s already happening. Scientists agree that to prevent our environment from altering drastically, we need to stop average global temperatures from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius.

In order to avoid disastrous impacts to our planet, we need to make sure that 80% of current fossil fuel reserves remain in the ground. But governments and institutions are still investing billions in expanding access to fossil fuels, moving us ever closer towards a future of climate change with catastrophic consequences. How can we possibly fight against such a huge amount of money and heavy investment?

Simply put, we hit em’ where it hurts: their bank accounts. The fossil fuel divestment movement calls on institutions around the world, from churches and non-profits to schools and universities, to sell off their holdings from fossil-fuel businesses.

And it’s not a small-stakes fight: the total value of institutions who have divested now surpasses $6 trillion and if we keep the pressure on, imagine how much it could be by the end of the year. The total value of institutions who have divested now surpasses $6 trillion, and there’s no saying exactly how high that figure will go by the end of this year. Even our own Ben & Jerry’s Foundation has committed to ensuring that none of its investments are in dirty fossil fuel stocks.

Increasingly, we cannot rely on federal or national governments to make the environmental changes we need, in the timeframe we need them. So, we are taking our fight to the people and to local councils. In Australia, through our Freeze Fossil Fuels campaign we are partnering with 350 to continue our divestment push and helping our fans to call on their local councils to divest.

35 Councils across Australia have already committed to divest from fossil fuels and with your help we can persuade the others to commit. Join us to ask our councils to Freeze their Fossil Fuels investment and pledge to divesting. Join us at http://act.350.org/signup/freeze_fossil_fuels/ to find out how you can get help.