Climate engineering

Solar radiation management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation_management 

 

Proposed solar radiation management using a tethered balloon to inject sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere.

Solar radiation management (SRM), or solar geoengineering, is a type of climate engineering in which sunlight (solar radiation) is reflected to limit or reverse global warming. Proposed methods include increasing the planetary albedo, for example with stratospheric sulfate aerosol injection. Restorative methods have also been proposed regarding the protection of natural heat reflectors including sea ice, snow, and glaciers. Their principal advantages as an approach to climate engineering is the speed with which they can be deployed and become fully active, their low financial cost, and the reversibility of their direct climatic effects.

Solar radiation management could serve as a temporary response while levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are reduced through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide removal. SRM would not reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and thus does not address problems such as ocean acidification caused by excess carbon dioxide (CO₂). However, SRM has been shown in climate models to be capable of reducing global average temperatures to pre-industrial levels, therefore SRM can prevent the climate change caused by global warming.

Purpose

Averaged over the year and the day, the Earth's atmosphere receives 340 W/m² of solar irradiance from the sun. Due to elevated atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, the net-difference between the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth and the amount radiated back to space has risen from 1.7 W/m² in 1980, to 3.1 W/m² in 2019. This net-imbalance - called radiative forcing - means that the Earth absorbs more energy than it lets off, causing global average temperatures to rise. The goal of SRM is to reduce radiative forcing by increasing Earth's reflectance (albedo). An increase in reflectance of around 1% would be sufficient to eliminate radiative forcing and thereby global warming, as 3.1 W/m² is around 1% of 340 W/m².

As early as 1974, Russian expert Mikhail Budyko suggested that if global warming ever became a serious threat, it could be countered with airplane flights in the stratosphere, burning sulphur to make aerosols that would reflect sunlight away. In recent years, US presidential candidate Andrew Yang included funding for SRM research in his climate policy and suggested its potential use as an emergency option. The annual cost of delivering a sufficient amount of sulfur to counteract expected greenhouse warming is estimated at $8 billion US dollars, which is around $1 per person in the world.

One of the most prominently considered methods of SRM is to scatter reflective aerosols - such as sulfur dioxide - in the stratosphere to reduce or eliminate elevated global temperatures caused by the greenhouse gas effect. This phenomenon occurs naturally by the eruption of volcanoes. In 1991, the massive eruption of Mt Pinatubo emitted large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which caused a recorded drop in global average temperatures of about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) over the following few years.

SRM is widely viewed as a complement, not a substitute, to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. The Royal Society concluded in its 2009 report: "Geoengineering methods are not a substitute for climate change mitigation, and should only be considered as part of a wider package of options for addressing climate change." Harvard University launched its Solar Geoengineering Research Program under the broad statement that "Solar geoengineering in particular could not be a replacement for reducing emissions (mitigation) or coping with a changing climate (adaptation); yet, it could supplement these efforts".

The National Academy of Sciences stated in a 2015 report: "Modeling studies have shown that large amounts of cooling, equivalent in scale to the predicted warming due to doubling the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere, can be produced by the introduction of tens of millions of tons of aerosols into the stratosphere. ... Preliminary modeling results suggest that albedo modification may be able to counter many of the damaging effects of elevated greenhouse gas concentrations on temperature and the hydrological cycle and reduce some impacts to sea ice."

It has been suggested that a 2% albedo increase would roughly halve the effect of doubling the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere. SRM has been suggested as a means of stabilizing regional climates - such as limiting heat waves, but precise control over the geographical boundaries of the effect is not reasonable to assume. Even if the effects in computer simulation models or of small-scale interventions are known, there may be cumulative problems such as ozone depletion, which become apparent only from large-scale experiments.

Advantages

Solar radiation management has certain advantages relative to emissions cuts, adaptation, and carbon dioxide removal. Its effect of counteracting climate change could be experienced very rapidly, on the order of months after implementation, whereas the effects of emissions cuts and carbon dioxide removal are delayed because the climate change that they prevent is itself delayed. Some proposed solar radiation management techniques are expected to have very low direct financial costs of implementation, relative to the expected costs of both unabated climate change and aggressive mitigation. This creates a different problem structure. Whereas the provision of emissions reduction and carbon dioxide removal present collective action problems (because ensuring a lower atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is a public good), a single country or a handful of countries could implement solar radiation management. Finally, the direct climatic effects of solar radiation management are reversible on short timescales.

Limitations and risks

As well as the imperfect cancellation of the climatic effect of greenhouse gases, there are other significant problems with solar radiation management as a form of climate engineering. SRM is temporary in its effect, and thus any long-term restoration of the climate would rely on long-term SRM, unless carbon dioxide removal was subsequently used. However, short-term SRM programs are potentially beneficial.

Incomplete solution to CO₂ emissions

Solar radiation management does not remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and thus does not reduce other effects from these gases, such as ocean acidification. While not an argument against solar radiation management per se, this is an argument against reliance on climate engineering to the exclusion of greenhouse gas reduction.

Control and predictability

Most of the information on solar radiation management is from models and computer simulations. The actual results may differ from the predicted effect. The full effects of various solar radiation management proposals are not yet well understood. It may be difficult to predict the ultimate effects of projects, with models presently giving varying results. In the cases of systems which involve tipping points, effects may be irreversible. Furthermore, most modeling to date consider the effects of using solar radiation management to fully counteract the increase in global average surface temperature arising from a doubling or a quadrupling of the preindustrial carbon dioxide concentration. Under these assumptions, it overcompensates for the changes in precipitation from climate change. Solar radiation management is more likely to be optimized in a way that balances counteracting changes to temperature and precipitation, to compensate for some portion of climate change, and/or to slow down the rate of climate change.

Side effects

There may be unintended climatic consequences of solar radiation management, such as significant changes to the hydrological cycle that might not be predicted by the models used to plan them. Such effects may be cumulative or chaotic in nature. Ozone depletion is a risk of techniques involving sulfur delivery into the stratosphere. Not all side effects are negative, and an increase in agricultural productivity has been predicted by some studies due to the combination of more diffuse light and elevated carbon dioxide concentration. A recent (2019) study published in Nature Climate Change computer modeling tested results when solar geoengineering reduced by half the warming produced by doubling CO2 (half SG). The study concluded ". . . neither temperature, water availability, extreme temperature nor extreme precipitation are exacerbated under half-SG when averaged over any Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Extremes (SREX) region." One study author, David Keith of Harvard University explains, "Big uncertainties remain, but climate models suggest that geoengineering could enable surprisingly uniform benefits."

Termination shock

If solar radiation management were masking a significant amount of warming and then were to abruptly stop, the climate would rapidly warm. This would cause a sudden rise in global temperatures towards levels which would have existed without the use of the climate engineering technique. The rapid rise in temperature may lead to more severe consequences than a gradual rise of the same magnitude.

Disagreement

The U.N. Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, which generally prohibits weaponising climate engineering techniques, came into force in 1978. But leaders of countries and other actors may disagree as to whether, how, and to what degree solar radiation management be used, which could exacerbate international tensions.

Effect on sunlight, sky and clouds

Managing solar radiation using aerosols or cloud cover would involve changing the ratio between direct and indirect solar radiation. This would affect plant life and solar energy. It is believed that there would be a significant effect on the appearance of the sky from stratospheric aerosol injection projects, notably a hazing of blue skies and a change in the appearance of sunsets. Aerosols affect the formation of clouds, especially cirrus clouds.

Proposed forms

Atmospheric

These projects seek to modify the atmosphere, either by enhancing naturally occurring stratospheric aerosols, or by using artificial techniques such as reflective balloons.

Stratospheric aerosols

Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering

Injecting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere is the proposed solar radiation management method that has received the most sustained attention. This technique could give much more than 3.7 W/m² of globally averaged negative forcing, which is sufficient to entirely offset the warming caused by a doubling of CO₂, which is a common benchmark for assessing future climate scenarios. Sulfates are the most commonly proposed aerosols for climate engineering, since there is a good natural analogue with (and evidence from) volcanic eruptions. Explosive volcanic eruptions inject large amounts of sulfur dioxide gas into the stratosphere, which form sulfate aerosol and cool the planet. Alternative materials such as using photophoretic particles, titanium dioxide, and diamond have been proposed. Delivery could be achieved using artillery, aircraft (such as the high-flying F15-C) or balloons. Broadly speaking, stratospheric aerosol injection is seen as a relatively more credible climate engineering technique, although one with potential major risks and challenges for its implementation. Risks include changes in precipitation and, in the case of sulfur, possible ozone depletion.

Marine cloud brightening

Various cloud reflectivity methods have been suggested, such as that proposed by John Latham and Stephen Salter, which works by spraying seawater in the atmosphere to increase the reflectivity of clouds. The extra condensation nuclei created by the spray would change the size distribution of the drops in existing clouds to make them whiter. The sprayers would use fleets of unmanned rotor ships known as Flettner vessels to spray mist created from seawater into the air to thicken clouds and thus reflect more radiation from the Earth. The whitening effect is created by using very small cloud condensation nuclei, which whiten the clouds due to the Twomey effect.

This technique can give more than 3.7 W/m² of globally averaged negative forcing, which is sufficient to reverse the warming effect of a doubling of CO₂.

Ocean sulfur cycle enhancement

Enhancing the natural marine sulfur cycle by fertilizing a small portion with iron—typically considered to be a greenhouse gas remediation method—may also increase the reflection of sunlight. Such fertilization, especially in the Southern Ocean, would enhance dimethyl sulfide production and consequently cloud reflectivity. This could potentially be used as regional solar radiation management, to slow Antarctic ice from melting. Such techniques also tend to sequester carbon, but the enhancement of cloud albedo also appears to be a likely effect.

Terrestrial

Cool roof

The albedo of several types of roofs

Painting roof materials in white or pale colours to reflect solar radiation, known as 'cool roof' technology, is encouraged by legislation in some areas (notably California). This technique is limited in its ultimate effectiveness by the constrained surface area available for treatment. This technique can give between 0.01–0.19 W/m² of globally averaged negative forcing, depending on whether cities or all settlements are so treated. This is small relative to the 3.7 W/m² of positive forcing from a doubling of CO₂. Moreover, while in small cases it can be achieved at little or no cost by simply selecting different materials, it can be costly if implemented on a larger scale. A 2009 Royal Society report states that, "the overall cost of a 'white roof method' covering an area of 1% of the land surface (about 10¹² m²) would be about $300 billion/yr, making this one of the least effective and most expensive methods considered." However, it can reduce the need for air conditioning, which emits CO₂ and contributes to global warming.

Ocean and ice changes

Oceanic foams have also been suggested, using microscopic bubbles suspended in the upper layers of the photic zone. A less costly proposal is to simply lengthen and brighten existing ship wakes.

Arctic sea ice formation could be increased by pumping deep cooler water to the surface. Sea ice (and terrestrial) ice can be thickened by increasing albedo with silica spheres. Glaciers flowing into the sea may be stabilized by blocking the flow of warm water to the glacier. Salt water could be pumped out of the ocean and snowed onto the West Antarctic ice sheet.

Vegetation

Reforestation in tropical areas has a cooling effect.

Changes to grassland have been proposed to increase albedo. This technique can give 0.64 W/m² of globally averaged negative forcing, which is insufficient to offset the 3.7 W/m² of positive forcing from a doubling of CO₂, but could make a minor contribution.

Selecting or genetically modifying commercial crops with high albedo has been suggested. This has the advantage of being relatively simple to implement, with farmers simply switching from one variety to another. Temperate areas may experience a 1 °C cooling as a result of this technique. This technique is an example of bio-geoengineering. This technique can give 0.44 W/m² of globally averaged negative forcing, which is insufficient to offset the 3.7 W/m² of positive forcing from a doubling of CO₂, but could make a minor contribution.

Space-based

The basic function of a space lens to mitigate global warming. In reality, a 1000 kilometre diameter lens is enough, much smaller than what is shown in the simplified image. In addition, as a Fresnel lens it would only be a few millimeters thick.

Space-based climate engineering projects are seen by many commentators and scientists as being very expensive and technically difficult, with the Royal Society suggesting that "the costs of setting in place such a space-based armada for the relatively short period that SRM geoengineering may be considered applicable (decades rather than centuries) would likely make it uncompetitive with other SRM approaches."

Proposed by Roger Angel with the purpose to deflect a percentage of solar sunlight into space, using mirrors orbiting around the Earth.

Mining moon dust to create a shielding cloud was proposed by Curtis Struck at Iowa State University in Ames.

Several authors have proposed dispersing light before it reaches the Earth by putting a very large diffraction grating (thin wire mesh) or lens in space, perhaps at the L1 point between the Earth and the Sun. Using a Fresnel lens in this manner was proposed in 1989 by J. T. Early. Using a diffraction grating was proposed in 1997 by Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, and Roderick Hyde. In 2004, physicist and science fiction author Gregory Benford calculated that a concave rotating Fresnel lens 1000 kilometres across, yet only a few millimeters thick, floating in space at the L₁ point, would reduce the solar energy reaching the Earth by approximately 0.5% to 1%. He estimated that this would cost around US$10 billion up front, and another $10 billion in supportive cost during its lifespan. One issue with implementing such a solution is the need to counteract the effects of the solar wind moving such megastructures out of position.

Governance

Climate engineering poses several challenges in the context of governance because of issues of power and jurisdiction. Climate engineering as a climate change solution differs from other mitigation and adaptation strategies. Unlike a carbon trading system that would be focused on participation from multiple parties along with transparency, monitoring measures and compliance procedures; this is not necessarily required by climate engineering. Bengtsson (2006) argues that "the artificial release of sulphate aerosols is a commitment of at least several hundred years". Yet this is true only if a long-term deployment strategy is adopted. Under a short-term, temporary strategy, implementation would instead be limited to decades. Both cases, however, highlight the importance for a political framework that is sustainable enough to contain a multilateral commitment over such a long period and yet is flexible as the techniques innovate through time. There are many controversies surrounding this topic and hence, climate engineering has become a very political issue. Most discussions and debates are not about which climate engineering technique is better than the other, or which one is more economically and socially feasible. Discussions are broadly on who will have control over the deployment of climate engineering and under what governance regime the deployment can be monitored and supervised. This is especially important due to the regional variability of the effects of many climate engineering techniques, benefiting some countries while damaging others. The main challenge posed by climate engineering is not how to get countries to do it. It is to address the fundamental question of who should decide whether and how climate engineering should be attempted – a problem of governance.

Solar radiation management raises a number of governance challenges. David Keith argues that the cost is within the realm of small countries, large corporations, or even very wealthy individuals. David Victor suggests that climate engineering is within the reach of a lone "Greenfinger," a wealthy individual who takes it upon him or herself to be the "self-appointed protector of the planet". However, it has been argued that a rogue state threatening solar radiation management may strengthen action on mitigation.

Legal and regulatory systems may face a significant challenge in effectively regulating solar radiation management in a manner that allows for an acceptable result for society. There are, however, significant incentives for states to cooperate in choosing a specific climate engineering policy, which make unilateral deployment a rather unlikely event.

Some researchers have suggested that building a global agreement on climate engineering deployment will be very difficult, and instead power blocs are likely to emerge.

Public attitudes

There have been a handful of studies into attitudes to and opinions of solar radiation management. These generally find low levels of awareness, uneasiness with the implementation of solar radiation management, cautious support of research, and a preference for greenhouse gas emissions reduction. As is often the case with public opinions regarding emerging issues, the responses are highly sensitive to the questions' particular wording and context.

One cited objection to implementing a short-term temperature fix is that there might then be less incentive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions until it caused some other environmental catastrophe, such as a chemical change in ocean water that could be disastrous to ocean life.

Ever since the idea of artificial cooling of planet was proposed, there has been major backlash and skepticism. Many people oppose the suggestion, but a recent study from the journal of Nature Climate Change has shown the speculation that solar geoengineering could cause extreme temperatures and increase severity of storms is actually incorrect. This journal shows that only 0.4% of places on the Earth would experience worsened weather conditions. Although no action has been carried out for spraying these gases and clouds into the atmosphere, this discovery could have a major influence on the course of action humans choose to take for reducing the greenhouse gas effect.

Many critics and concerned scientists are whole-heartedly against the idea of solar geoengineering. A geophysics professor, Alan Robock, has reprimanded the Nature Climate Change journal for neglecting to mention other environmental effects that will occur from the atmospheric spray. Robock had said the choice to cool the Earth by artificial emissions would be very costly and it could serve a potential threat to different plant and animal species. Likewise, The Nature Ecology and Evolution journal predicted the use of aerosols would cause a quick transfer of temperatures from warm to cold which would not allow animals to move to a comfortable environment.

Health and environmental impact of the coal industry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and_environmental_impact_of_the_coal_industry 

A coal surface mining site in Bihar, India

A mountaintop removal mining operation in the United States

The health and environmental impact of the coal industry includes issues such as land use, waste management, water and air pollution, caused by the coal mining, processing and the use of its products. In addition to atmospheric pollution, coal burning produces hundreds of millions of tons of solid waste products annually, including fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals. Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.

There are severe health effects caused by burning coal. According to a report by the World Health Organization in 2008, coal particulates pollution are estimated to shorten approximately 10,000 lives annually worldwide. A 2004 study commissioned by environmental groups, but contested by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, concluded that coal burning costs 24,000 lives a year in the United States. More recently, an academic study estimated that the premature deaths from coal related air pollution was about 52,000. When compared to electricity produced from natural gas via hydraulic fracturing, coal electricity is 10–100 times more toxic, largely due to the amount of particulate matter emitted during combustion. When coal is compared to solar photovoltaic generation, the latter could save 51,999 American lives per year if solar were to replace coal-based energy generation in the U.S. Due to the decline of jobs related to coal mining a study found that approximately one American suffers a premature death from coal pollution for every job remaining in coal mining.

In addition, the list of historical coal mining disasters is a long one, although work related coal deaths has declined substantially as safety measures have been enacted and underground mining has given up market share to surface mining. Underground mining hazards include suffocation, gas poisoning, roof collapse and gas explosions. Open cut hazards are principally mine wall failures and vehicle collisions. In the United States, an average of 26 coal miners per year died in the decade 2005–2014.

Land use management

Impact to land and surroundings

Strip mining severely alters the landscape, which reduces the value of the natural environment in the surrounding land. The land surface is dedicated to mining activities until it can be reshaped and reclaimed. If mining is allowed, resident human populations must be resettled off the mine site; economic activities, such as agriculture or hunting and gathering food and medicinal plants are interrupted. What becomes of the land surface after mining is determined by the manner in which the mining is conducted. Usually reclamation of disturbed lands to a land use condition is not equal to the original use. Existing land uses (such as livestock grazing, crop and timber production) are temporarily eliminated in mining areas. High-value, intensive-land-use areas like urban and transportation systems are not usually affected by mining operations. If mineral values are sufficient, these improvements may be removed to an adjacent area.

Strip mining eliminates existing vegetation, destroys the genetic soil profile, displaces or destroys wildlife and habitat, alters current land uses, and to some extent permanently changes the general topography of the area mined. Adverse impacts on geological features of human interest may occur in a coal strip mine. Geomorphic and geophysical features and outstanding scenic resources may be sacrificed by indiscriminate mining. Paleontological, cultural, and other historic values may be endangered due to the disruptive activities of blasting, ripping, and excavating coal. Stripping of overburden eliminates and destroys archeological and historic features, unless they are removed beforehand.

The removal of vegetative cover and activities associated with the construction of haul roads, stockpiling of topsoil, displacement of overburden and hauling of soil and coal increase the quantity of dust around mining operations. Dust degrades air quality in the immediate area, has an adverse impact on vegetative life, and constitutes health and safety hazards for mine workers and nearby residents.

Surface mining disrupts virtually all aesthetic elements of the landscape. Alteration of land forms often imposes unfamiliar and discontinuous configurations. New linear patterns appear as material is extracted and waste piles are developed. Different colors and textures are exposed as vegetative cover is removed and overburden dumped to the side. Dust, vibration, and diesel exhaust odors are created (affecting sight, sound, and smell). Residents of local communities often find such impacts disturbing or unpleasant. In case of mountaintop removal, tops are removed from mountains or hills to expose thick coal seams underneath. The soil and rock removed is deposited in nearby valleys, hollows and depressions, resulting in blocked (and contaminated) waterways.

Removal of soil and rock overburden covering the coal resource may cause burial and loss of topsoil, exposes parent material, and creates large infertile wastelands. Soil disturbance and associated compaction result in conditions conducive to erosion. Soil removal from the area to be surface-mined alters or destroys many natural soil characteristics, and reduces its biodiversity and productivity for agriculture. Soil structure may be disturbed by pulverization or aggregate breakdown.

Mine collapses (or mine subsidences) have the potential to produce major effects above ground, which are especially devastating in developed areas. German underground coal-mining (especially in North Rhine-Westphalia) has damaged thousands of houses, and the coal-mining industries have set aside large sums in funding for future subsidence damages as part of their insurance and state-subsidy schemes. In a particularly spectacular case in the German Saar region (another historical coal-mining area), a suspected mine collapse in 2008 created an earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter magnitude scale, causing some damage to houses. Previously, smaller earthquakes had become increasingly common and coal mining was temporarily suspended in the area.

In response to negative land effects of coal mining and the abundance of abandoned mines in the US the federal government enacted the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, which requires reclamation plans for future coal mining sites. These plans must be approved by federal or state authorities before mining begins.

Water management

Surface mining may impair groundwater in numerous ways: by drainage of usable water from shallow aquifers; lowering of water levels in adjacent areas and changes in flow direction within aquifers; contamination of usable aquifers below mining operations due to infiltration (percolation) of poor-quality mine water; and increased infiltration of precipitation on spoil piles. Where coal or carbonaceous shale is present, increased infiltration may result in: increased runoff of poor-quality water and erosion from spoil piles, recharge of poor-quality water to shallow groundwater aquifers and poor-quality water flow to nearby streams.

The contamination of both groundwater and nearby streams may be for long periods of time. Deterioration of stream quality results from acid mine drainage, toxic trace elements, high content of dissolved solids in mine drainage water, and increased sediment loads discharged to streams. When coal surfaces are exposed, pyrite comes in contact with water and air and forms sulfuric acid. As water drains from the mine, the acid moves into the waterways; as long as rain falls on the mine tailings the sulfuric-acid production continues, whether the mine is still operating or not. Also waste piles and coal storage piles can yield sediment to streams. Surface waters may be rendered unfit for agriculture, human consumption, bathing, or other household uses.

To anticipate these problems, water is monitored at coal mines. The five principal technologies used to control water flow at mine sites are: diversion systems, ash ponds (surface impoundments), groundwater pumping systems, subsurface drainage systems, and subsurface barriers. In the United States, due to few federal and state regulations concerning ash ponds, most power plants do not use geomembranes, leachate collection systems, or other flow controls often found in municipal solid waste landfills. More stringent U.S. regulations for ash ponds and landfills are pending as of 2020.

River water pollution

Coal-fired boilers, using either coal or lignite rich in limestone, produces fly ash containing calcium oxide (CaO). CaO readily dissolves in water to form slaked lime (Ca(OH)₂) which is carried by rainwater to rivers/irrigation water from the ash dump areas. Lime softening process precipitates Ca and Mg ions / removes temporary hardness in the water and also converts sodium bicarbonates in river water into sodium carbonate. Sodium carbonate (washing soda) further reacts with the remaining Ca and Mg in the water to remove / precipitate the total hardness. Also, water-soluble sodium salts present in the ash enhance the sodium content in water further. Thus river water is converted into soft water by eliminating Ca and Mg ions and enhancing Na ions by coal-fired boilers. Soft water application in irrigation (surface or ground water) converts the fertile soils into alkaline sodic soils. River water alkalinity and sodicity due to the accumulation of salts in the remaining water after meeting various transpiration and evaporation losses, become acute when many coal-fired boilers and power stations are installed in a river basin. River water sodicity affects downstream cultivated river basins located in China, India, Egypt, Pakistan, west Asia, Australia, western US, etc.

Pollutant discharges from ash ponds to rivers (or other surface water bodies) typically include arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, chromium, and cadmium.

Waste management

Aerial photograph of Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill site taken the day after the event (23 December 2008)

The burning of coal leaves substantial quantities of fly ash, which is usually stored in ash ponds (wet storage) or landfills (dry storage). Pollutants such as heavy metals leach into groundwater from unlined ponds or landfills, and can pollute aquifers for decades or centuries. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified 44 sites as potential hazards to communities (which means the waste sites could cause death and significant property damage if an event such as a storm, a terrorist attack or a structural failure caused a spill). EPA estimated that about 300 dry landfills and wet storage ponds are used around the country to store ash from coal-fired power plants. The storage facilities hold the noncombustible ingredients of coal, including the ash captured by equipment designed to reduce air pollution.

In the low-coal-content areas waste forms spoil tip.

Wildlife

Surface mining of coal causes direct and indirect damage to wildlife. The impact on wildlife stems primarily from disturbing, removing and redistributing the land surface. Some impacts are short-term and confined to the mine site however others have far-reaching, long-term effects.

The most direct effect on wildlife is destruction or displacement of species in areas of excavation and spoil piling. Pit and spoil areas are not capable of providing food and cover for most species of wildlife. Mobile wildlife species like game animals, birds, and predators leave these areas. More sedentary animals like invertebrates, reptiles, burrowing rodents, and small mammals may be destroyed. The community of microorganisms and nutrient-cycling processes are upset by movement, storage, and redistribution of soil.

Degradation of aquatic habitats is a major impact by surface mining and may be apparent many miles from a mining site. Sediment contamination of surface water is common with surface mining. Sediment yields may increase a thousand times their former level as a result of strip mining.

The effects of sediment on aquatic wildlife vary with the species and the amount of contamination. High sediment levels can kill fish directly, bury spawning beds, reduce light transmission, alter temperature gradients, fill in pools, spread streamflows over wider, shallower areas, and reduce the production of aquatic organisms used as food by other species. These changes destroy the habitat of valued species and may enhance habitat for less-desirable species. Existing conditions are already marginal for some freshwater fish in the United States, and the sedimentation of their habitat may result in their extinction. The heaviest sediment pollution of drainage normally comes within 5 to 25 years after mining. In some areas, unvegetated spoil piles continue to erode even 50 to 65 years after mining.

The presence of acid-forming materials exposed as a result of surface mining can affect wildlife by eliminating habitat and by causing direct destruction of some species. Lesser concentrations can suppress productivity, growth rate and reproduction of many aquatic species. Acids, dilute concentrations of heavy metals, and high alkalinity can cause severe damage to wildlife in some areas. The duration of acidic-waste pollution can be long; estimates of the time required to leach exposed acidic materials in the Eastern United States range from 800 to 3,000 years.

Air pollution

Air emissions

In northern China, air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels, principally coal, is causing people to die on average 5.5 years sooner than they otherwise might.

— Tim Flannery, Atmosphere of Hope, 2015.

Coal and coal waste products (including fly ash, bottom ash and boiler slag) release approximately 20 toxic-release chemicals, including arsenic, lead, mercury, nickel, vanadium, beryllium, cadmium, barium, chromium, copper, molybdenum, zinc, selenium and radium, which are dangerous if released into the environment. While these substances are trace impurities, enough coal is burned that significant amounts of these substances are released.

The Mpumalanga highveld in South Africa is the most polluted area in the world due to the mining industry and coal plant power stations and the lowveld near the famous Kruger Park is under threat of new mine projects as well.

Illustration of air pollutants generated by U.S. power plants (includes both coal-fired and oil-fired plants).

During combustion, the reaction between coal and the air produces oxides of carbon, including carbon dioxide (CO₂, an important greenhouse gas), oxides of sulfur (mainly sulfur dioxide, SO₂), and various oxides of nitrogen (NO_x). Because of the hydrogenous and nitrogenous components of coal, hydrides and nitrides of carbon and sulfur are also produced during the combustion of coal in air. These include hydrogen cyanide (HCN), sulfur nitrate (SNO₃) and other toxic substances.

SO₂ and nitrogen oxide react in the atmosphere to form fine particles and ground-level ozone and are transported long distances, making it difficult for other states to achieve healthy levels of pollution control.

The wet cooling towers used in coal-fired power stations, etc. emit drift and fog which are also an environmental concern. The drift contains Respirable suspended particulate matter. In case of cooling towers with sea water makeup, sodium salts are deposited on nearby lands which would convert the land into alkali soil, reducing the fertility of vegetative lands and also cause corrosion of nearby structures.

Fires sometimes occur in coal beds underground. When coal beds are exposed, the fire risk is increased. Weathered coal can also increase ground temperatures if it is left on the surface. Almost all fires in solid coal are ignited by surface fires caused by people or lightning. Spontaneous combustion is caused when coal oxidizes and airflow is insufficient to dissipate heat; this more commonly occurs in stockpiles and waste piles, rarely in bedded coal underground. Where coal fires occur, there is attendant air pollution from emission of smoke and noxious fumes into the atmosphere. Coal seam fires may burn underground for decades, threatening destruction of forests, homes, roadways and other valuable infrastructure. The best-known coal-seam fire may be the one which led to the permanent evacuation of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States.

Approximately 75 Tg/S per year of Sulfur Dioxide (SO₂) is released from burning coal. After release, the Sulfur Dioxide is oxidized to gaseous H₂SO₂ which scatters solar radiation, hence their increase in the atmosphere exerts a cooling effect on climate that masks some of the warming caused by increased greenhouse gases. Release of SO₂ also contributes to the widespread acidification of ecosystems.

Mercury emissions

In 2011 U.S. power plants emitted half of the nation's mercury air pollutants. In February 2012, EPA issued the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) regulation, which requires all coal-fired plants to substantially reduce mercury emissions.

In New York State winds deposit mercury from the coal-fired power plants of the Midwest, contaminating the waters of the Catskill Mountains. Mercury is concentrated up the food chain, as it is converted into methylmercury, a toxic compound which harms both wildlife and people who consume freshwater fish. The mercury is consumed by worms, which are eaten by fish, which are eaten by birds (including bald eagles). As of 2008, mercury levels in bald eagles in the Catskills had reached new heights. "People are exposed to methylmercury almost entirely by eating contaminated fish and wildlife that are at the top of aquatic food chains." Ocean fish account for the majority of human exposure to methylmercury; the full range of sources of methylmercury in ocean fish is not well understood.

Annual excess mortality and morbidity

In 2008 the World Health Organization (WHO) and other organizations calculated that coal particulates pollution cause approximately one million deaths annually across the world, which is approximately one third of all premature deaths related to all air pollution sources, for example in Istanbul by lung diseases and cancer.

Pollutants emitted by burning coal include fine particulates (PM2.5) and ground level ozone. Every year, the burning of coal without the use of available pollution control technology causes thousands of preventable deaths in the United States. A study commissioned by the Maryland nurses association in 2006 found that emissions from just six of Maryland's coal-burning plants caused 700 deaths per year nationwide, including 100 in Maryland. Since installation of pollution abatement equipment on one of these six, the Brandon Shores plant, now "produces 90 percent less nitrogen oxide, an ingredient of smog; 95 percent less sulfur, which causes acid rain; and vastly lower fractions of other pollutants."

Economic costs

A 2001 EU-funded study known as ExternE, or Externalities of Energy, over the decade from 1995 to 2005 found that the cost of producing electricity from coal would double over its present value, if external costs were taken into account. These external costs include damage to the environment and to human health from airborne particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, chromium VI and arsenic emissions produced by coal. It was estimated that external, downstream, fossil fuel costs amount up to 1–2% of the EU's entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with coal being the main fossil fuel accountable, and this was before the external cost of global warming from these sources was even included. The study found that environmental and health costs of coal alone were €0.06/kWh, or 6 cents/kWh, with the energy sources of the lowest external costs being nuclear power €0.0019/kWh, and wind power at €0.0009/kWh.

High rates of motherboard failures in China and India appear to be due to "sulfurous air pollution produced by coal that’s burned to generate electricity. It corrodes the copper circuitry," according to Intel researchers.

Greenhouse gas emissions

The combustion of coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Electric generation using coal burning produces approximately twice the greenhouse gasses per kilowatt compared to generation using natural gas.

Coal mining releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Methane is the naturally occurring product of the decay of organic matter as coal deposits are formed with increasing depths of burial, rising temperatures, and rising pressure over geological time. A portion of the methane produced is absorbed by the coal and later released from the coal seam (and surrounding disturbed strata) during the mining process. Methane accounts for 10.5 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions created through human activity. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane has a global warming potential 21 times greater than that of carbon dioxide over a 100-year timeline. The process of mining can release pockets of methane. These gases may pose a threat to coal miners, as well as a source of air pollution. This is due to the relaxation of pressure and fracturing of the strata during mining activity, which gives rise to safety concerns for the coal miners if not managed properly. The buildup of pressure in the strata can lead to explosions during (or after) the mining process if prevention methods, such as "methane draining", are not taken.

In 2008 James E. Hansen and Pushker Kharecha published a peer-reviewed scientific study analyzing the effect of a coal phase-out on atmospheric CO₂ levels. Their baseline mitigation scenario was a phaseout of global coal emissions by 2050. Under the Business as Usual scenario, atmospheric CO₂ peaks at 563 parts per million (ppm) in the year 2100. Under the four coal phase-out scenarios, atmospheric CO₂ peaks at 422–446 ppm between 2045 and 2060 and declines thereafter.

Radiation exposure

Coal also contains low levels of uranium, thorium, and other naturally occurring radioactive isotopes which, if released into the environment, may lead to radioactive contamination. Coal plants emit radiation in the form of radioactive fly ash, which is inhaled and ingested by neighbours, and incorporated into crops. A 1978 paper from Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimated that coal-fired power plants of that time may contribute a whole-body committed dose of 19 µSv/a to their immediate neighbours in a 500 m radius. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation's 1988 report estimated the committed dose 1 km away to be 20 µSv/a for older plants or 1 µSv/a for newer plants with improved fly ash capture, but was unable to confirm these numbers by test.

Excluding contained waste and unintentional releases from nuclear plants, coal-plants carry more radioactive wastes into the environment than nuclear plants per unit of produced energy. Plant-emitted radiation carried by coal-derived fly ash delivers 100 times more radiation to the surrounding environment than does the normal operation of a similarly productive nuclear plant. This comparison does not consider the rest of the fuel cycle, i.e., coal and uranium mining and refining and waste disposal. The operation of a 1000-MWe coal-fired power plant results in a nuclear radiation dose of 490 person-rem/year, compared to 136 person-rem/year, for an equivalent nuclear power plant including uranium mining, reactor operation and waste disposal.

Dangers to miners

Historically, coal mining has been a very dangerous activity, and the list of historical coal mining disasters is long. The principal hazards are mine wall failures and vehicle collisions; underground mining hazards include suffocation, gas poisoning, roof collapse and gas explosions. Chronic lung diseases, such as pneumoconiosis (black lung) were once common in miners, leading to reduced life expectancy. In some mining countries black lung is still common, with 4,000 new cases of black lung every year in the US (4 percent of workers annually) and 10,000 new cases every year in China (0.2 percent of workers). Rates may be higher than reported in some regions.

In the United States, an average of 23 coal miners per year died in the decade 2007–2016. Recent U.S. coal-mining disasters include the Sago Mine disaster of January 2006. In 2007, a mine accident in Utah's Crandall Canyon Mine killed nine miners, with six entombed. The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia killed 29 miners in April 2010.

However, in lesser developed countries and some developing countries, many miners continue to die annually, either through direct accidents in coal mines or through adverse health consequences from working under poor conditions. China, in particular, has the highest number of coal mining related deaths in the world, with official statistics claiming that 6,027 deaths in 2004. To compare, 28 deaths were reported in the US in the same year. Coal production in China is twice that in the US, while the number of coal miners is around 50 times that of the US, making deaths in coal mines in China 4 times as common per worker (108 times as common per unit output) as in the US.

The Farmington coal mine disaster kills 78. West Virginia, US, 1968.

Build-ups of a hazardous gas are known as damps:

• Black damp: a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in a mine can cause suffocation. The anoxic condition results of depletion of oxygen in enclosed spaces, e.g. by corrosion.
• After damp: similar to black damp, after damp consists of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen and forms after a mine explosion.
• Fire damp: consists of mostly methane, a highly flammable gas that explodes between 5% and 15% – at 25% it causes asphyxiation.
• Stink damp: so named for the rotten egg smell of the hydrogen sulphide gas, stink damp can explode and is also very toxic.
• White damp: air containing carbon monoxide which is toxic, even at low concentrations

Firedamp explosions can trigger the much more dangerous coal dust explosions, which can engulf an entire pit. Most of these risks can be greatly reduced in modern mines, and multiple fatality incidents are now rare in some parts of the developed world. Modern mining in the US results in approximately 30 deaths per year due to mine accidents.

Climate movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_movement 

 

 

Banner "System change, not climate change" at Ende Gelände 2017 in Germany.

 

 

Countries by Climate change performance Index

The climate movement is the collective of nongovernmental organizations engaged in activism related to the issues of climate change. It is a subset of the broader environmental movement, but some regard it as a new social movement itself given its scope, strength, and activities.

History

The climate movement has rapidly evolved in the first decades of the 21st century, starting as one of the many causes of the environmental movement.

Activism related to climate change began in the 1990s, when major environmental organizations became involved in the discussions about climate, mainly in the UNFCCC framework. In the 2000s several climate-specific organizations were founded, such as 350.org, Energy Action Coalition, and the Global Call for Climate Action.

Mobilization for Copenhagen 2009

The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was the first UNFCCC summit in which the climate movement started showing its mobilization power at a large scale. Between 40,000 and 100,000 people attended a march in Copenhagen on December 12 calling for a global agreement on climate. And activism went beyond Copenhagen, with more than 5,400 rallies and demonstrations took place around the world simultaneously.

Activities

2014 People’s Climate March

The People's Climate March 2014, brought together hundreds of thousands of people for strong action on climate change.

The climate movement convened its largest single event on 21 September 2014, when it mobilized 400,000 activists in New York during the People’s Climate March (plus several thousand more in other cities), organized by the People's Climate Movement, to demand climate action from the global leaders gathered for the 2014 UN Climate Summit.

Fossil Fuel Divestment

As of 2020, 1200 institutions possessing 14 trillion dollars divested from the fossil fuel industry.

Fossil fuel divestment or fossil fuel divestment and investment in climate solutions is an attempt to reduce climate change by exerting social, political, and economic pressure for the institutional divestment of assets including stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments connected to companies involved in extracting fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel divestment campaigns emerged on campuses in the United States in 2011 with students urging their administrations to turn endowment investments in the fossil fuel industry into investments in clean energy and communities most impacted by climate change.

By 2015, fossil fuel divestment was reportedly the fastest growing divestment movement in history. In April 2020, a total of 1,192 institutions and over 58,000 individuals representing $14 trillion in assets worldwide had begun or committed to a divestment from fossil fuels.

Climate Mobilization

Since 2014, growing portions of the climate movement, especially in the United States have been organizing for an international economic response to climate change on the scale of the mobilization of the American home front during World War II, with the goal of rapidly slashing carbon emissions and transitioning to 100% clean energy faster than the free market is likely to allow. Throughout 2015 and 2016, The Climate Mobilization led grassroots campaigns in the U.S. for this scale of ambition, and in July 2016, activists succeeded in getting text adopted into the Democratic Party's national platform calling for WWII-scale climate mobilization. In August 2015, environmentalist Bill McKibben published an article in the New Republic rallying Americans to "declare war on climate change."

A school strike for climate in Berlin (2018).

School strikes for climate

Maximum number of school strikers per country:

  <1000 

  1000+ 

  10000+ 

  100000+ 

  1000000+

 

The school strike for climate (Swedish: Skolstrejk för klimatet), also known variously as Fridays for Future (FFF), Youth for Climate, Climate Strike/Climatestrike or Youth Strike for Climate, is an international movement of school students (in many countries also university students) who skip classes, mainly on Fridays, to participate in demonstrations to demand action from political and economical leaders, to limit climate disaster, and for the fossil fuel industry to transition to renewable energy. Most regional branches of the movement see themselves also as a part of the Global Climate Justice Movement. The climate movement is in general very democratic and grassroots organized.

Publicity and widespread organising began after Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg staged a protest in August 2018 outside the Swedish Riksdag (parliament), holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" ("School strike for climate").

A global strike on 15 March 2019 gathered more than one million strikers in 2,200 strikes organised in 125 countries. On 24 May 2019, the second global strike took place, in which 1,600 events across 150 countries drew hundreds of thousands of protesters. The events were timed to coincide with the 2019 European Parliament election.

The 2019 Global Week for Future was a series of 4,500 strikes across over 150 countries, focused around Friday 20 September and Friday 27 September. Likely the largest climate strikes in world history, the 20 September strikes gathered roughly 4 million protesters, many of them schoolchildren, including 1.4 million in Germany. On 27 September, an estimated two million people participated in demonstrations worldwide, including over one million protesters in Italy and several hundred thousand protesters in Canada.

2019 Global Climate Strike

Protest attendee numbers from 20–27 September 2019, by country.

  1,000,000+

  100,000+

  10,000+

  1,000+

  100+

  Small protests, unclear numbers

The September 2019 climate strikes, also known as the Global Week for Future, were a series of international strikes and protests to demand action be taken to address climate change, which took place from 20–27 September. The strikes' key dates were 20 September, which was three days before the United Nations Climate Summit, and 27 September. The protests took place across 4,500 locations in 150 countries. The event is a part of the school strike for climate movement, inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. The Guardian reported that roughly 6 million people participated in the events, whilst 350.org—a group that organised many of the protests—claim that 7.6 million people participated.

The 20 September protests were likely the largest climate strikes in world history. Organisers reported that over 4 million people participated in strikes worldwide, including 1.4 million participants in Germany. An estimated 300,000 protesters took part in Australian strikes, a further 300,000 people joined UK protests and protesters in New York—where Greta Thunberg delivered a speech—numbered roughly 250,000. More than 2,000 scientists in 40 countries pledged to support the strikes.

A second wave of protests took place on 27 September, in which an estimated 2 million people took part in over 2,400 protests. There were reported figures of one million protesters in Italy, and 170,000 people in New Zealand. In Montreal, where Greta Thunberg spoke, the Montreal school board cancelled classes for 114,000 of its students. Hundreds of thousands of people, including several federal party leaders, joined the march in Montreal.

Roles of other movements

The climate movement is closely connected to other parts of the environmental movement, in particular groups aiming for a sustainable society and sustainable energy. Also, the faith community has been active in the climate movement, both at an interfaith level (such as in Our Voices) and at the specific level of each denomination (such as the Global Catholic Climate Movement). With this movement, new youth international organizations have emerged to join the climate change movement such as Fridays for Future or Extinction Rebellion.

Methods

These are several approaches that have been used in the past by climate advocates and advocacy campaigns:

• the provision of information,
• framing of information about aspects of global climate change, and
• challenging the terms of political debates.

All three of these methods have been implemented in climate campaigns aimed at the general public. The information about the impacts of global climate change plays a role in forming climatic beliefs, attitudes, and behavior, while the effects of other approaches (e.g. provision of information about solutions to GCC, consensus framing, use of mechanistic information) is yet mostly unknown. The third approach is to create space for discussions that move beyond questions of economic interests that often dominate political debates to emphasize ecological values and grass-roots democracy. This has been argued to be crucial to bringing about more significant structural change. 

Targeting of activists

The United States government through its domestic intelligence services targeted, as "domestic terrorists," environmental activists and climate change organizations, including by investigating them, questioning them, and placing them on national "watchlists" that makes it more difficult for them to board airplanes and that could instigate local law enforcement monitoring. Unknown actors also secretly hired professional hackers to launch phishing hacking attacks against climate activists who were organizing the #ExxonKnew campaign.

Fossil fuel divestment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_divestment 

As of 2020, 1200 institutions possessing 14 trillion dollars divested from the fossil fuel industry.

Fossil fuel divestment or fossil fuel divestment and investment in climate solutions is an attempt to reduce climate change by exerting social, political, and economic pressure for the institutional divestment of assets including stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments connected to companies involved in extracting fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel divestment campaigns emerged on campuses in the United States in 2011 with students urging their administrations to turn endowment investments in the fossil fuel industry into investments in clean energy and communities most impacted by climate change.

By 2015, fossil fuel divestment was reportedly the fastest growing divestment movement in history. In April 2020, a total of 1,192 institutions and over 58,000 individuals representing $14 trillion in assets worldwide had begun or committed to a divestment from fossil fuels.

Motivations for divestment

Reducing carbon emissions

Fossil fuel divestment aims to reduce carbon emissions by accelerating the adoption of the renewable energy transition through the stigmatisation of fossil fuel companies. This includes putting public pressure on companies that are currently involved in fossil fuel extraction to invest in renewable energy.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that all future carbon dioxide emissions must be less than 1,000 gigatonnes to provide a 66% chance of avoiding dangerous climate change; this figure includes all sources of carbon emissions. To avoid dangerous climate change, only 33% of known extractable fossil fuel of known reserves can be used; this carbon budget can also be depleted by an increase in other carbon emission sources such as deforestation and cement production. It is claimed that, if other carbon emissions increase significantly, then only 10% of the fossil fuel reserves can be used to stay within projected safe limits.

Furthermore, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Earth's average temperature has risen by 0.78 °C (1.4 °F) over the past century, and is predicted to rise another 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2 to 11.5 °F) over the next hundred years with continued carbon emission rates. This rise in temperature would far pass the level of warming that scientists have deemed safe to support life on earth.

I think this is part of a process of delegitimising this sector and saying these are odious profits, this is not a legitimate business model ... This is the beginning of the kind of model that we need, and the first step is saying these profits are not acceptable and once we collectively say that and believe that and express that in our universities, in our faith institutions, at city council level, then we’re one step away from where we need to be, which is polluter pays.

— Naomi Klein (author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate), The Guardian, 2014.

Acting on the Paris Agreement

Toronto Principle

This Agreement [...] aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, [...] including by [...] Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C and [...] Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

— Paris Agreement, article 2 (2015).

The Toronto Principle is a fossil fuel divestment strategy, which puts into action the aims set forth at the Paris Agreement in 2015. It was first coined by Benjamin A. Franta, in an article in the Harvard Crimson, as a reference to the University of Toronto's fossil fuel divestment process.

After 350.org submitted a petition for divestment on 6 March 2014, President Gertler established an ad hoc Advisory Committee on Divestment from Fossil Fuels. In December 2015, the Committee released a report with several recommendations. Foremost, they argued that "targeted and principled divestment from companies in the fossil fuels industry that meet certain criteria...should be an important part of the University of Toronto’s response to the challenges of climate change." However, the report went further, and allied itself with the Paris Agreement. It recommended that the university divest from companies that "blatantly disregard the international effort to limit the rise in average global temperatures to not more than one and a half degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages by 2050...These are fossil fuels companies whose actions are irreconcilable with achieving internationally agreed goals."

Franta identified this response as the Toronto Principle, which, as he argues, "aligns rhetoric and action. It suggests that it is all institutions' responsibility to give life to the Paris agreement. Harvard could adopt this Toronto principle, and the world would be better for it." Franta also identified how the Toronto Principle would be put into practice, which includes "moving investments away from coal companies and coal-fired power plants, companies seeking non-conventional or aggressive fossil fuel development (such as oil from the Arctic or tar sands), and possibly also companies that distort public policies or deceive the public on climate. At present, these activities are incompatible with the agreement in Paris." In adhering to the Toronto Principle, Franta argues that leading institutions can use their status and power to meaningfully respond to the challenge of climate change, and act based on the goals at the Paris Agreement.

Ultimately in 2016 the University of Toronto President Meric Gertler rejected his advisory committee's recommendations, leaving the Toronto Principle yet to be implemented.

Lofoten Declaration

The Lofoten Declaration (2017) calls for curtailing hydrocarbon exploration and expansion of fossil fuel reserves. It demands fossil fuel divestment and phase-out of use with a just transition to a low-carbon economy. The Declaration calls for early leadership in these efforts from the economies that have benefited the most from fossil fuel extraction.

Economic

Stranded assets – the carbon bubble

The carbon bubble according to data by the Carbon Tracker Initiative (2013)

 

3500–4000 environmental activists blocking a coal mine in Germany to limit climate change (Ende Gelände 2016)

Stranded assets, which are known in relation to fossil fuel companies as the carbon bubble, occur when the reserves of fossil fuel companies are deemed environmentally unsustainable and so unusable and so must be written off. Currently the price of fossil fuels companies' shares is calculated under the assumption that all of the companies' fossil fuel reserves will be consumed, and so the true costs of carbon dioxide in intensifying global warming is not taken into account in a company's stock market valuation.

Known extractable fossil fuel reserves that cannot be burned
in order to prevent dangerous climate change

Fuel	United States	Africa	Australia	China and India	Ex-Soviet Republics	Arctic	Worldwide
Coal	92%	85%	90%	66%	94%	0%	82%
Gas	4%	33%	61%	63%	50%	100%	49%
Oil	6%	21%	38%	25%	85%	100%	33%

In 2013 a study by HSBC found that between 40% and 60% of the market value of BP, Royal Dutch Shell and other European fossil fuel companies could be wiped out because of stranded assets caused by carbon emission regulation. Bank of England governor Mark Carney, speaking at the 2015 World Bank seminar, has stated: "The vast majority of reserves are unburnable" if global temperature rises are to be limited to below 2 °C. In 2019, Carney suggested that banks should be forced to disclose their climate-linked risks within the next two years, and said that more information would prompt investors to penalise and reward firms accordingly. He warned that companies and industries that are not moving towards zero-carbon emissions could be punished by investors and go bankrupt.

In June 2014, the International Energy Agency released an independent analysis on the effect of carbon emissions controls. This estimated that $300 billion in fossil-fuel investments would be stranded by 2035 if cuts in carbon emissions are adopted so that the global mean surface temperature increases by no more than 2 °C.

A report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative found that between 2010 and 2015 the US coal sector had lost 76% of its value including the closure of 200 mines. It found that Peabody Energy, the world's largest private coal mining company, had lost 80% of its share price over this time. This was attributed to Environmental Protection Agency regulations and competition from shale gas.

In 2013, fossil fuel companies invested $670 billion in exploration of new oil and gas resources.

Risk of regulation and carbon pricing

A 2015 report studied 20 fossil fuel companies and found that, while highly profitable, the hidden economic cost to society was also large. The report spans the period 2008–2012 and notes that: "for all companies and all years, the economic cost to society of their CO
2 emissions was greater than their after‐tax profit, with the single exception of ExxonMobil in 2008." Pure coal companies fare even worse: "the economic cost to society exceeds total revenue (employment, taxes, supply purchases, and indirect employment) in all years, with this cost varying between nearly $2 and nearly $9 per $1 of revenue." The paper suggests:

This hidden or externalised cost is an implicit subsidy and accordingly represents a risk to those companies. There is a reasonable chance that society will act to either reduce this societal cost by regulating against fossil fuel use or recover it by imposing carbon prices. Investors are increasingly focused on this risk and seeking to understand and manage it."

Similarly, in 2014, financial analyst firm Kepler Cheuvreux projected $28 trillion in lost value for fossil fuel companies under a regulatory scenario that targets 450 parts per million of atmospheric CO
2.

Competition from renewable energy sources

Competition from renewable energy sources may lead to the loss of value of fossil fuel companies due to their inability to compete commercially with the renewable energy sources. In some cases this has already happened. Deutsche Bank predicts that 80% of the global electricity market will have reached grid parity for solar electricity generation by the end of 2017. In 2012, 67% of the world's electricity generation was produced from fossil fuels.

Stanwell Corporation, an electricity generator owned by the Government of Queensland made a loss in 2013 from its 4,000 MW of coal and gas fired generation capacity. The company attributed this loss to the expansion of rooftop solar generation which reduced the price of electricity during the day; on some days the price (usually AUD$40–50/MWh) was almost zero. The Australian Government and Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast the production of energy by rooftop solar to rise sixfold between 2014 and 2024.

Unstable fossil fuel prices

Unstable fossil fuel prices has made investment in fossil fuel extraction a more risky investment opportunity. West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell in value from $107 per barrel in June 2014 to $50 per barrel in January 2015. Goldman Sachs stated in January 2015 that, if oil were to stabilize at $70 per barrel, $1 trillion of planned oilfield investments would not be profitable.

Morality

The moral motivation for fossil fuel divestment is based on the belief that it is wrong to profit from willfully and knowingly damaging the planet, and especially so when the impacts those damages are borne disproportionately by those who have benefitted the least from fossil fuel extraction and use. Philosopher and climate justice campaigner Alex Lenferna presents these three interlocking moral arguments in favor of fossil fuel divestment:

1. investing in fossil fuels contributes to grave, substantial, and unnecessary harm and injustice;
2. divesting from fossil fuels helps fulfill our moral responsibility to promote climate action; and
3. investing in fossil fuels morally tarnishes those who do so by making them complicit in the injustices of the fossil fuel industry.

Effects of divestment

Stigmatization of fossil fuel companies

A study by the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford found that the stigmatisation of fossil fuel companies caused by divestment can "materially increase the uncertainty surrounding the future cash flows of fossil-fuel companies." That, in turn, "can lead to a permanent compression in the trading multiples – e.g., the share price to earnings (P/E) ratio of a target company."

The study also says that:

The outcome of the stigmatisation process poses the most far-reaching threat to fossil fuel companies. Any direct impacts pale in comparison.

Financial impact

Despite social effects, direct financial impacts are often reported as negligible by financial research studies.

According to a 2013 study by the Aperio Group, the economic risks of disinvestment from fossil fuel companies in the Russell 3000 Index are "statistically irrelevant".

According to a 2019 analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the energy sector portion of the S&P 500, which is dominated by fossil fuels, has underperformed the overall index since 1989.

Legal cases

In November 2014, a group of seven undergraduate, graduate, and law students filed a lawsuit at the Suffolk County Superior Court against the president and fellows of Harvard College and others for "mismanagement of charitable funds" and "intentional investment in abnormally dangerous activities" in relation to Harvard's investments in fossil-fuel companies. In March 2015, the superior court granted Harvard's motion to dismiss. The superior judge wrote: "Plaintiffs have brought their advocacy, fervent and articulate and admirable as it is, to a forum that cannot grant the relief they seek."

Reaction from the fossil-fuel industry

In October 2014, Exxon Mobil stated that the fossil-fuel divestment was "out of step with reality" and that "to not use fossil fuels is tantamount to not using energy at all, and that's not feasible."

In March 2014, John Felmy, the chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, stated that the movement to divest from fossil-fuel companies "truly disgusts me" and stated that academics and campaigners who support divestment are misinformed, uninformed or liars. Felmy particularly criticized the environmentalist and author Bill McKibben.

The World Coal Association has pointed out that divesting from the fossil fuel industry does not necessarily result in a reduction of demand for fossil fuels, rather it would result in environmentally conscious investors losing influence over the operation of those companies. In fact, coal has been the fastest growing energy source over the last decade and is an important raw material for steel and cement in developing countries.

Exponential growth into a global divestment movement

From half a dozen college campuses in 2011, calling on their administrations to divest endowments from coal and other fossil fuels and invest in clean energy and "just transition" strategies to empower those most impacted by environmental degradation and climate change, the campaign had spread to an estimated 50 campuses in spring 2012. By September 2014, 181 institutions and 656 individuals had committed to divest over $50 billion. One year later, by September 2015, the numbers had grown to 436 institutions and 2,040 individuals across 43 countries, representing $2.6 trillion in assets, of which 56% were based on the commitment of pension funds and 37% of private companies. By April 2016, already 515 institutions had joined the pledge, of which 27% faith-based groups, 24% foundations, 13% governmental organisations, 13% pension funds and 12% colleges, universities and schools, representing, together with the individual investors, a total of $3.4 trillion in assets. In April 2020, the number of institutions had grown to 1192, with a total combined asset value of $14,14 trillion.

Groups involved in divestment campaigns

Fossil Free ANU

Fossil Free ANU campaigners with Bob Brown

 

In October 2014, more than 82% of ANU students voted for full fossil fuel divestment

The divestment campaign at the Australian National University is one of the longest running in the world and, while it has not yet achieved full fossil fuel divestment, it has had substantial wins, most notably in 2011 and 2014.

Fossil Free ANU formed out of the ANU Environment Collective (EC), a consensus-based and non-hierarchical group of students affiliated with the Australian Student Environment Network, when students were notified in 2011 by campaigners at the Northern Rivers, NSW that ANU was the 12th largest shareholders in the coal seam gas company Metgasco. Following student protests, including an event called 'ANU Gets Fracked' that saw students erect a mock gas rig in Union Court, the ANU Council announced in October 2013 that it would divest from Metgasco, citing student concerns and the fact that the Australian Ethical Investment did not approve of them. Tom Stayner, an activist from the EC, stated in the ANU student paper Woroni that: "He took some convincing, but the Vice Chancellor is showing leadership on this urgent issue."

However, student concerns were again raised in 2012 when it was revealed that the ANU had only reduced its holding in Metgasco from over 4 million shares in 2011 to 2.5 million in 2012. In 2013, Tom Swann filed a FOI request to the ANU requesting all "documents created during 2012, which refer to the University's purchase, sale or ownership of shares in any company which generates revenue from oil, coal, gas, or uranium." These documents revealed that ANU had substantial holdings in major fossil fuel companies and had been buying shares in Santos while selling shares in Metgasco. Students lobbying and public pressure led the ANU Council to implement a Socially Responsible Investment Policy (SRI) in late 2013 modelled on Stanford University, which aims to "avoid investment opportunities considered to be likely to cause substantial social injury."

In 2014, students from Fossil Free ANU organised the first student-initiated referendum at the ANU and in elections in September more than 82 per cent of students voted in favour of the ANU divesting from fossil fuels in what was the highest turnout in a student election at the university in more than a decade. In October 2014, the ANU Council announced that it would divest from seven companies, two of which, Santos and Oil Search, performed poorly in an independent review undertaken by the Centre for Australian Ethical Research. This decision provoked a month-long controversy with the Australian Financial Review publishing over 53 stories criticising the decision including 12 front pages attacking the ANU, with its editor-in-chief, Michael Stutchbury, prouncing the decision to be as "disingenuous" as banning the burqa. These attacks, which The Canberra Times editorial described as "verging on hysterical" was joined by members of the cabinet of the Abbott Government, with the Treasurer Joe Hockey stating that the ANU Council is "removed from the reality of what is helping to drive the Australian economy and create more employment," Education Minister Christopher Pyne calling it "bizarre" and Prime Minister Tony Abbott calling it "stupid." In response, Louis Klee, an activist from Fossil Free ANU, wrote in The Age that the reaction demonstrated not just "the complicity of state power with the mining industry," but also:

[...] that the citizens of this country are powerful voices in the debate over climate justice. It demonstrates that they are, ultimately, voices speaking with growing eloquence, urgency and authority for one thing: action to address global climate change.

In 2015, Australian National University students present a giant petition to the University Council.

Vice-Chancellor of ANU Ian Young stood by the decision, stating:

On divestment, it is clear we were in the right and played a truly national and international leadership role. ... [W]e seem to have played a major role in a movement which now seems unstoppable.

Meeting with students in the wake of the furore of the decision, Ian Young told activists from Fossil Free ANU that while he initially thought divestment was "a sideshow," the reaction of the mining companies revealed that students "were right all along."

ANU still has holdings in fossil fuel companies and Fossil Free ANU continues to campaign for ANU to 'Divest the Rest'.

350.org

350.org is an international environmental organization encouraging citizens to action with the belief that publicizing the increasing levels of carbon dioxide will pressure world leaders to address climate change and to reduce levels from 400 parts per million to 350 parts per million. As part of its global policy, 350.org launched their Go Fossil Free: Divest from Fossil Fuels! campaign in 2012, which campaign calls for colleges and universities, as well as cities, religious institutions, and pension funds to withdraw their investments from fossil fuel companies.

Divest-Invest Philanthropy

Divest-Invest Philanthropy is an international platform for institutions committed to fossil fuel divestment.

The Guardian

'Keep it in the ground' banner spread out by environmental activists in a coal mine

In March 2015, The Guardian launched the 'Keep it in the ground' campaign encouraging the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to divest from fossil fuel companies in which the foundation has a minimum of $1.4 billion invested. The Wellcome Trust has £450m of investments in Shell, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and BP. The petition had received over 140,000 signatures by the end of March 2015.

The Guardian itself stopped accepting advertisements from the fossil fuel industry in January 2020.

Fossil Free Stanford

Fossil Free Stanford is one of the highest-profile university divestment campaigns in the U.S. In May 2014, the university divested its endowment, then valued at US$18.7 billion, from holdings in coal extraction companies following a sustained campaign by undergraduate students. Author Naomi Klein called the divestment, "the most significant victory in the youth climate movement to date."

The campaign maintains widespread support on the campus, exemplified in multiple all-campus referenda, including in April 2014 and April 2018, in which the student body voted 75 percent and 81 percent in favor of divestment from all fossil fuels, respectively. The Stanford Undergraduate Senate and Stanford Graduate Student Council also both passed resolutions calling for full fossil fuel divestment in 2014. In 2016, the student body Presidents and Vice Presidents from both the 2016–2017 school year and the 2015–2016 school year published a letter calling for the university's leadership to represent the student consensus in support of fossil fuel divestment.

In January 2015, a group of more than 300 Stanford faculty published a letter calling for full divestment, which garnered international attention. Additional faculty signed on in the following weeks such that the total grew to 457 faculty signatories. Signatories included a former president of the university, multiple department chairs, a vice provost, multiple Nobel Laureates, and members of all seven of the university's schools.

In November 2015, in advance of the UNFCCC COP 21 climate negotiations that resulted in the Paris Agreement, over 100 students risked arrest by staging a non-violent sit-in, surrounding the university president's office for 5 days and 4 nights. The sit-in ended when the university's president, John Hennessy, agreed on the fifth day to a public meeting with the student group. In response to the students' publicized plans to hold this sit-in, the university's Board of Trustees published a letter to the UNFCCC calling for bold climate action.

In April 2016, the university's Board announced that it would take no further divestment action related to fossil fuel divestment. In response, a group of over 1000 students and Alumni pledged during the school's graduation ceremonies in June 2016 to withhold all future donations until the school achieved full divestment.

Divest Harvard

Divest Harvard is an organization at Harvard University that seeks to compel the university to divest from fossil fuel companies. The group was founded in 2012 by students at Harvard College. In November 2012, a referendum on divestment passed at Harvard College with 72% support, followed by a similar referendum at the Harvard Law School in May 2013, which passed with 67% support. During this time, representatives from Divest Harvard began meeting with members of Harvard University's governing body, the Harvard Corporation, but the meetings were described as unproductive.

In October 2013, the Harvard Corporation formally announced that the university would not consider a policy of divestment. Following this, Divest Harvard began organizing rallies, teach-ins, and debates on divestment. In March 2014, students from Divest Harvard recorded an impromptu exchange on divestment with Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, during which Faust appeared to claim that fossil fuel companies do not block efforts to counteract climate change. The video has since become a source of controversy.

In April 2014, a group of nearly 100 Harvard faculty released an open letter to the Harvard Corporation arguing for divestment. This was followed by a 30-hour blockade of the Harvard president's office by students protesting the president's refusal to engage in a public discussion of divestment; the Harvard administration terminated the blockade by arresting one of the student protesters. Following the protest, Faust said she would not hold the open forum that students and faculty had requested and would not engage with students from Divest Harvard. In May 2014, a group of Harvard alumni interrupted an alumni reunion event with Faust present by standing and holding a pro-divestment banner; the alumni were removed from the event and banned from Harvard's campus.

In September 2014, Harvard faculty renewed their calls for an open forum on divestment and continued to argue for divestment publicly. In October 2014, Divest Harvard organized a three-day fast and public outreach event to call attention to the harms of climate change. In November 2014, a group of students calling themselves the Harvard Climate Justice Coalition filed a lawsuit against the Harvard Corporation to compel divestment on the grounds of Harvard's status as a non-profit organization. The lawsuit was dismissed by a Massachusetts Superior Court judge, who wrote that "Plaintiffs have brought their advocacy, fervent and articulate and admirable as it is, to a forum that cannot grant the relief they seek." The plaintiffs have stated that they plan to appeal the decision.

In January 2015, it was revealed that Harvard had increased its direct investments in fossil fuel companies considerably, and the number of faculty and alumni supporting divestment grew. By April 2015, the faculty group calling for divestment grew to 250, the Harvard alumni club of Vermont officially voted to endorse divestment, and Divest Harvard announced the creation of a fossil-free alumni donation fund that Harvard would receive conditional on divestment. In February 2015, Divest Harvard occupied the president's office for 24 hours in protest of the Harvard Corporation's continued unwillingness to engage students on the topic of divestment. This was followed by an open letter from a group of prominent Harvard alumni urging the university to divest. In April 2015, Divest Harvard and Harvard alumni carried out an announced week-long protest called Harvard Heat Week, which included rallies, marches, public outreach, and a continuous civil disobedience blockade of administrative buildings on campus. The Harvard administration avoided engaging with the protest. Following Heat Week, Divest Harvard carried out an unannounced one-day civil disobedience blockade of the Harvard president's office in protest of continued lack of action by the Harvard administration.

In November 2019, at the annual Harvard-Yale football game, over 150 Harvard and Yale students stormed the field at halftime to demand divestment and the immediate cancellation of holdings in Puerto Rican debt, delaying the start of the second half by over 45 minutes. The event was a joint protest led by Divest Harvard and Fossil Free Yale, and drew extensive coverage from news outlets and on social media, accompanied by the hashtag '#NobodyWins'.

Fossil Free MIT and MIT Divest

Fossil Free MIT (FFMIT) was a student organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made up of MIT undergrads, graduate students, post-docs, faculty, staff and alumni. The group was formed in Fall 2012 by six MIT students following a visit to Boston by Bill McKibben of 350.org on his "Do the Math" tour. The group has collected over 3,500 signatures in a petition calling for MIT to (1) immediately freeze new investments in fossil fuel companies, and (2) divest within five years from current holdings in these companies.

Following discussions with FFMIT, the university administration initiated a "campus-wide conversation" on climate change to take place from November 2014 to May 2015, which included the formation of the MIT Climate Change Conversation Committee. The committee, composed of 13 faculty, staff, and students, was charged with engaging the MIT community to determine how the university could address climate change and with offering recommendations. The conversation included solicitation of ideas and opinions of MIT community members, as well as a number of public events. The largest event was a fossil fuel divestment debate among six prominent voices on climate change that was attended by approximately 500 people.

The committee released a report in June 2015, recommending a number of initiatives to be undertaken by the university. In regards to fossil fuel divestment, the committee "rejected the idea of blanket divestment from all fossil fuel companies"; although there was "support by (three-quarter) majority of the committee for targeted divestment from companies whose operations are heavily focused on the exploration for and/or extraction of the fossil fuels that are least compatible with mitigating climate change, for example coal and tar sands."

Following the campus-wide conversation, on 21 October 2015, President L. Rafael Reif announced the MIT Plan for Action on Climate Change. While the plan enacted many of the committee's recommendations, the university administration chose not to divest its holdings in fossil fuel companies, stating that "divestment...is incompatible with the strategy of engagement with industry to solve problems that is at the heart of today’s plan."

The following day, Fossil Free MIT began a sit-in outside the office of the President to protest the shortcomings of the plan, including the rejection of divestment. Over 100 people overall participated in the sit-in, which received coverage by multiple news outlets, including the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, and the Daily Caller. The sit-in, which lasted 116 days, ended officially with an agreement with Vice President for Research Maria Zuber following negotiations about how to improve the Plan. The agreement did not include divestment, but succeeded in establishing a climate advisory committee and a climate ethics forum. In addition, the administration agreed to strengthen the university's carbon mitigation commitments, striving for carbon neutrality "as soon as possible."

In 2019, the divestment campaign at MIT was restarted by a new student-led group, Divest MIT. One of their projects has been to engage the MIT administration in a public dialogue about the effectiveness of the 2015 MIT Climate Action Plan and set goals for MIT climate action beginning in 2020.

Faith organizations

The biggest part of fossil fuel divestment commitments come from faith organizations - 350 from 1,300. On 18 May 2020, 42 faith organizations declared that they are divesting from fossil fuels. They called for a green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Catholic organisations with 40 billion dollars in assets joined Catholic Impact Investing Pledge.

In 2020 the Catholic Church published a manual called "Journeying Towards Care For Our Common Home" that explains to Catholics how to divest from institutions considered to be harmful by the Catholic Church. Those include fossil fuels, child labour, and weapons. The Vatican Bank claims that it is not investing in fossil fuels with many other Catholic organisations. Pope Francis has called for climate action for many years. He published a call to stop the climate crisis named Laudato si'.

Support for fossil fuel divestment

Support for the divestment movement by politicians and individuals

It is clear the transition to a clean energy future is inevitable, beneficial and well underway, and that investors have a key role to play.

— Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations (2016).

A number of individuals and organisations have voiced support for fossil fuel divestment including:

• Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations
• Ed Davey
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Bianca Jagger
• Barack Obama
• Yotam Ottolenghi
• Tilda Swinton

In March 2015 Mary Robinson, Ban Ki-moon's special envoy on climate change and former Irish President stated, "it is almost a due diligence requirement to consider ending investment in dirty energy companies".

Desmond Tutu has voiced support for fossil fuel divestment and compared it to divestment from South Africa in protest of apartheid.

We must stop climate change. And we can, if we use the tactics that worked in South Africa against the worst carbon emitters ... Throughout my life I have believed that the only just response to injustice is what Mahatma Gandhi termed "passive resistance". During the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, using boycotts, divestment and sanctions, and supported by our friends overseas, we were not only able to apply economic pressure on the unjust state, but also serious moral pressure.

— Desmond Tutu

In September 2020, 12 mayors from the C40 Cities coalition issued an open declaration in support of fossil fuel divestment, entitled "Divesting from Fossil Fuels, Investing in a Sustainable Future."

Support for the divestment movement by investors

A prominent speaker at the 5th annual World Pensions & Investments Forum held in December 2015, Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs voiced for institutional investors to take their fiduciary responsibility in reducing the risk of losses via fossil fuel divestment.

Support for specific fossil fuel divestment campaigns

Harvard University

People on the Harvard campus seeking signatures for Harvard divestment from fossil fuels, May 2015

In February 2015 alumni of Harvard University including Natalie Portman, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Darren Aronofsky and Susan Faludi wrote an open letter to Harvard University demanding that it divest its $35.9 billion endowment from coal, gas, and oil companies.

Those students have done a remarkable job in garnering overwhelming student support for divestment, and the faculty too have delivered a strong message. But so far [Harvard] has not just refused to divest, they’ve doubled down by announcing the decision to buy stock in some of the dirtiest energy companies on the planet.

— Open letter to Harvard university from notable alumni, 2014, 

Harvard's decision not to divest was explained in an open letter from the University President, Drew Faust:

Divestment is likely to have negligible financial impact on the affected companies. And such a strategy would diminish the influence or voice we might have with this industry. Divestment pits concerned citizens and institutions against companies that have enormous capacity and responsibility to promote progress toward a more sustainable future.

On November 23, 2019, at the annual Harvard-Yale football game, about 200 supporters of divestment took over the field to protest Harvard and Yale's inaction on divestment, disrupting game play for about 30 minutes. Legal charges against ten Harvard students involved in the protest were later dismissed.

On February 4, 2020, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted 179-20 in favor of a motion demanding that the Harvard Corporation divest its endowment from fossil fuels.

In 2020, three candidates for the Harvard Board of Overseers were elected on a platform of climate action and social justice, with fossil fuel divestment at the center of their campaign.

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow became the first university in Europe to agree to divest from fossil fuels. The NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden commented:

I am proud to offer my support and endorsement for Climate Action Society’s fossil fuels divestment campaign. By confronting the threat of unsustainable energy use and exploration to our planetary habitat, the students of Glasgow University do a public service for all families of today and tomorrow.

— Edward Snowden

Groups divesting or taking official steps toward divestment by country

United States

Governments and pension funds in the US

Governments and pension funds in the United States that have partially or completely divested, or that have taken steps toward divestment, include (listed alphabetically):

• Amherst, Cambridge, Northampton, Provincetown and Truro, Massachusetts – by 2014, city councils or town meetings in these municipalities passed resolutions calling on pension managers to divest from fossil fuels.
• Ann Arbor, Michigan – in October 2013, after several rounds of consideration, the city council voted 9–2 to approve a nonbinding resolution requesting that the City of Ann Arbor Employees' Retirement System board cease new investments in the top 100 coal and top 100 gas and oil extraction companies and divest current such investments within five years.
• Berkeley, California – in 2013, the City Council voted to adopt an official policy of divesting from city funds from direct ownership of publicly traded fossil-fuel companies; the city aims to complete the divestment process within the next five years.
• Burlington, Vermont – in December 2014, the Burlington City Council unanimously approved conducting the study of possible divestment from major fossil-fuel companies. A task force of city councilors, retirement board members, public employee representatives and others was appointed to research the proposal and make recommendations for the city's retirement board within one year.
• Eugene, Oregon – the City Council unanimously voted in January 2014 to take up the fossil-fuel issue at a future meeting.
• Ithaca, New York – in 2013, Mayor Svante Myrick stated that the city did not have any investments in fossil fuels and would not make any such investment for as long as he was mayor. Myrick also encouraged the pension funds of the New York State and Local Retirement System, overseen by the Office of the New York State Comptroller, to divest.
• Madison, Wisconsin – in July 2013, the city adopted a resolution declaring that it is the policy of the City of Madison not to invest in fossil-fuel companies. The resolution does not apply to the Madison Metropolitan School District (whose cash balances the city invests) or two municipal mutual insurance corporations of which the city is part-owner. Mayor Paul Soglin and the majority of city council members introduced the resolution.
• New York City – in January 2018, New York City announced it will divest US$5 billion from fossil fuels interests over the next 5 years. In addition, the city is filing lawsuits against BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell for costs the city faces in relation to climate change.
• Providence, Rhode Island – in June 2013, the City Council voted 11–1 to enact a resolution directing the city's board of investment commissioners to divest from the world's largest coal, oil and gas companies within five years, and to not make any new investments in such firms.
• San Francisco, California – in 2013, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed nonbinding resolution urging managers of San Francisco Employees' Retirement System to divest from fossil fuels; in March 2015, the board of the retirement system voted to begin "level-two engagement", a step toward divestment.
• Santa Monica, California – committed to divestment in 2013 and completed its divestment (of about $700,000) within one year.
• Seattle, Washington – Mayor pledged to divest in 2012, but city and pension fund have not completed process.
• Somerville, Massachusetts – The city's retirement board voted in 2017 to move 4.5% of its portfolio into a fund that does not include fossil fuel companies. Shortly thereafter, the divestment action was blocked by the state's public pension oversight board on the grounds of fiduciary responsibility (although a 2019 analysis found that the divested version of the fund would have had a substantially higher return than the fund that included fossil fuels). Since then, efforts to allow home rule petitions and a state bill giving Massachusetts towns greater control over divestment actions continue.
• Washington, D.C. – in June 2016, the City Council along with DC Divest announced that the District's $6.4 billion retirement fund had divested from direct holdings in the top 200 fossil fuel companies in the world.

Colleges and universities in the US

Students at Tufts University "marched forth on 4 March" coinciding with dozens of student-led rallies around the United States. The marches had the objective of pressuring universities to reduce and eventually eliminate investments in fossil-fuel related ventures.

Colleges and universities which have partially or completely divested, or which have taken steps toward divestment, include (listed alphabetically):

• American University (Washington, D.C.)
• Brevard College (Brevard, North Carolina, USA) – in February 2015, the college's board of trustees approved a resolution to divest the college's $25 million endowment from fossil fuels by 2018. At the time the decision was made, about $600,000 (4%) of the college's portfolio was invested in fossil fuels. The college became the first institution of higher education in the Southeastern United States to divest from fossil fuel.
• California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, California, USA) – in December 2014, CalArts announced that it would immediately reduce the Institute's investments in fossil-fuel stocks by 25% (reallocating about $3.6 million in its portfolio) and would continue to not make direct investments in fossil fuel. The Institute also announced that it would "actively monitor the Institute's remaining carbon exposure and consider strategies that will continue to reduce the Institute's investments in fossil fuel companies, including seeking to eliminate exposure to the most carbon-intensive companies such as coal producers over the next five years."
• California State University, Chico (Chico, California, USA) – in December 2014, the board of governors of the Chico State University Foundation, which manages the university's endowment, voted to change its investment policy and divest of holdings in fossil fuel companies. At the time the policy was adopted, the foundation had "no direct holdings in fossil-fuel companies and just under 2 percent of its portfolio in managed funds that include fossil fuel investments." The vote calls for excluding any direct investment in the top 200 fossil fuel companies and liquidating, within four years, all holdings in managed funds that include investments in fossil fuel companies.
• College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, Maine, USA) – in March 2013, the college's board of trustees voted to divest from fossil-fuel companies. About $1 million of the college's $30 million endowment was invested in such companies.
• College of the Marshall Islands (Marshall Islands) – in December 2014 and January 2015, the college announced that its board of regents would be adopting a policy statement divising its small endowment (about $1 million) from fossil fuels.
• Cornell University (Ithaca, New York, USA) – in May 2020, the Board of Trustees voted to divest from fossil fuels by instituting a moratorium on new private investment focused on fossil fuels. Investments are expected to grow in alternative and renewable energy portfolios. The committee's vote includes ending all current investments in fossil fuels over the next five to seven years.
• Foothill–De Anza Community College District (Foothill College and De Anza College in Cupertino, California, USA) – the foundation's board of directors voted in October 2013 to divest from the top 200 fossil-fuel companies by June 2014, becoming the first community college foundation in the nation to commit to fossil-fuel divestment.
• George Washington University (Washington, DC) – in June 2020, the college's board of trustees voted to divest from fossil fuels, which make up about 3% of the college's endowment.
• Goddard College (Plainfield, Vermont, USA) – in January 2015, the college announced that it had completed its divestment, moving all of its endowment funds into fossil fuel-free accounts, becoming the third college in Vermont to do so.
• Green Mountain College (Poultney, Vermont, USA) – in May 2013, the college's board of trustees approved immediate divestment from the top 200 publicly traded fossil-fuel companies. Such investments made up about 1% of the college's $3.1 million endowment.
• Hampshire College (Amherst, Massachusetts, USA) – in December 2011, in the college's board of trustees approved a new environmental, social, and governance investing policy which called for "negligible fossil fuel holdings in our portfolio." The college announced in October 2012 that it had nearly completed the implementation of this policy.
• Humboldt State University (Arcata, California, USA) – since at least 2004, the university has had no direct investments in fossil fuel-related industries. In April 2014, the Humboldt State University Advancement Foundation, which oversees the university's endowment, unanimously adopted a new "environmentally responsible offset and mitigation policy" and "Humboldt Investment Pledge" to strictly limit its holdings in a variety of industries, including companies directly or indirectly involved in fossil fuels. In October 2014, the foundation's board voted to shift 10% of its overall portfolio to "green funds" (funds with no holdings in fossil fuels or similar sectors) over the next year, reiterated its policy against direct investments in fossil fuels, and committed to creating a new fund invested entirely free of fossil fuels, with the distributions from the fund earmarked for campus-based sustainability projects.
• Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland, USA)  – in December 2017 the Board of trustees votes to eliminate investments in companies that produce coal for electric power as a major part of their business.
• Lewis & Clark College (Portland, Oregon, USA)  – in February 2018 the Board of trustees unanimously voted to divest from all fossil fuel holdings in the school endowment.
• Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont, USA) – in January 2019, the board of trustees of Middlebury College unanimously voted to pass Energy2028, therefore agreeing to divest all direct holdings in the fossil fuel industry. The plan defines these investments broadly, including "all those in enterprises whose core industry is oil and gas exploration and/or production, coal mining, oil and gas equipment, services and/or pipelines." The vote came after years of organizing by the student-run Divest Middlebury campaign.
• Pacific School of Religion (Berkeley, California, USA) – in February 2015, the seminary's board of trustees voted unanimously to divest the institution from the 200 largest fossil-fuel companies (those listed on the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CT200)).
• San Francisco State University (San Francisco, California, USA) – in 2014, the San Francisco State University Foundation, which oversees the university's $51.2 million endowment, voted to make no new investments that would involve "direct ownership of companies with significant exposure to production or use of coal and tar sands." The foundation also voted to look into future divestment from all fossil-fuel companies.
• Seattle University (Seattle, Washington, USA) - in September 2018, following student group preassure Seattle University is the first university in Washington state to divest its endowment of fossil fuels over the next five years. The action means that by 2023, Seattle University will no longer invest any of its $230 million endowment in the funds and securities of fossil-fuel companies. The university will work to achieve a 50 percent reduction by 31 December 2020, and expects to be fully divested by 30 June 2023. "The moral imperative for action is clear", said Seattle U President Stephen Sundborg in an announcement. "By taking this step we are acting boldly and making an important statement … We join with others also at the forefront of the growing divestment movement and hope our action encourages more to do the same". Seattle U also becomes the first among the nation's 28 Jesuit colleges and universities to divest. "It’s definitely a victory for us", said student Connor Crinion, a member of Sustainable Student Action, the student group that has pushed for divestment since 2012. "We’re hoping this might be a milestone" that will encourage divestment at other schools in Washington, as well as at other Jesuit universities, he said.
• Stanford University (Stanford, California, USA) – in May 2014, following an advisory panel's recommendation, the university's board of trustees voted to divest the investment portfolio of its $18.7 billion endowment of companies "whose principal business is coal." This made Stanford the "first major university to lend support to a nationwide campaign to purge endowments and pension funds of fossil fuel investments."
• Sterling College (Craftsbury, Vermont, USA) – the tiny college's board of trustees voted in February 2013 to divest from the top 200 fossil-fuel companies. The college announced that it had completed divestment of its $920,000 endowment by July 2013, with all of its investments in a fossil-fuel free portfolio.
• The New School (New York, New York, USA) – in February 2015, the New School announced that it would divest from all fossil-fuel investments in coming years. The school simultaneously announced that "it is also reshaping the entire curriculum to focus more on climate change and sustainability."
• Unity College (Unity, Maine, USA) – in 2008, the college's board of trustees asked its endowment-management firm to begin decreasing its exposure to large energy companies (which then made up about 10% of its portfolio). In November 2012, the board of trustees unanimously voted to divest the remainder of its fossil-fuel holdings (then about 3% of its portfolio) over the next five years. The college completed divestment in 2014, three years ahead of schedule. Unity College was the first institution of higher education in the United States to divest from fossil fuels.
• University of California (Oakland, California, USA) – In September 2019, the University of California announced it will divest its $83 billion in endowment and pension funds from the fossil fuel industry, citing 'financial risk'.
• University of Dayton (Dayton, Ohio, USA) – In May 2014, the University of Dayton's board of trustees unanimously approved a plan to begin to divest the university's holdings from the top 200 fossil-fuel companies. At the time of the announcement, about 5% ($35 million) of the university's $670 million investment pool was held in such companies. UD became the first Catholic university in the US to divest from fossil fuels. The plan was publicly announced in June 2014. The university planned to review its progress in 18 months.
• University of Maine System (Maine, USA) – in January 2015, the board of trustees of the University of Maine System unanimously voted to divest from direct holdings in coal-mining companies. The system's total investments were about $589 million; the decision would affect $502,000 of direct investments in coal, which amounts to about 30% of the system's total ($1.7 million exposure to coal, including both direct and indirect investments). Some board members stated that they would continue to consider full system-wide divestment in the future. Separately, the University of Maine at Presque Isle, one of seven schools within the system, announced that its own foundation had divested from all fossil-fuel investments.
• University of Massachusetts (Massachusetts, USA) – in December 2015, the board of trustees of the University of Massachusetts System announced their plans to divest from direct holdings in coal companies. Once this decision was released, the escalation of a four-year student-run campaign, the UMass Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign, occurred. A 500 student week long occupation of the Whitmore Administration Building led to 34 student arrests and a decision to vote on fossil fuel divestment at the next Board of Trustees Meeting. On 25 May 2016 it was announced the University of Massachusetts system would divest its endowment from direct holdings in fossil fuels, becoming the first major public university to do so.

Foundations and charitable endowments in the US

We see this as both a moral imperative and an economic opportunity.

— Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund,
on disinvesting from fossil fuels, 30 September 2014

In September 2014, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced it would be divesting its fossil fuel investments totaling $60 million. "We are quite convinced that if he were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy."

Religious organizations in the US

The 2013 general synod of the United Church of Christ (UCC) passed a resolution (sponsored by the Massachusetts Conference and ten other conferences of the UCC) outlining a path to divestment of church funds from fossil-fuel holdings. Under the resolution, a plan for divestment will be developed by June 2018. The original proposal considered by the general synod called for a five-year plan to divestment; this was changed following negotiations between divestment proponents and the UCC's investment arm, United Church Funds. United Church Funds also established a denominational fossil-free fund (believed to be the first of its kind), which raised almost $16 million from UCC congregations, conferences, and other groups by late September 2014.

In June 2014, the trustees of Union Theological Seminary in New York City unanimously voted to begin divesting fossil fuels from the seminary's $108.4 million endowment.

Banks in the US

In 2019 the Goldman Sachs bank divested from arctic oil, coal thermal mines and mountaintop removal projects

United Kingdom

Local Authorities in the UK

In 2015, the London Assembly passed a motion calling on the Mayor of London to urgently divest pension funds from fossil fuel companies.

The UK government has explicitly warned Local Authorities in the UK that they may be penalised if they boycott suppliers on the basis of involvement in fossil fuel extraction so long as it remains government policy not to boycott. This makes it challenging for local government to act on boycott even if it believes it has an ethical or environmental case to do so.

Colleges and universities in the UK

• SOAS, University of London (London, United Kingdom) – in March 2015, SOAS announced it will divest within 3 years. SOAS fulfilled this pledge in 2018. SOAS was the first university in London to divest and one of the first in the UK. Its announcement came after a long running student-led campaign.
• King's College London (London, United Kingdom) – in September 2016, King's College London agreed to invest 15% of its £179 million endowment in clean energy and to drop investments in the most polluting fossil fuels. The university currently has exposure to Anglo American, Rio Tinto, and Glencore.
• University of Glasgow (Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom) – in October 2014, the university announced plans to freeze new investments in fossil fuels and divest from fossil fuel companies over the next ten years. Hydrocarbon investment made up around 4% of the university's total endowment; about £18 million in such investments will be withdrawn over the decade-long phaseout. The University of Glasgow was the first university in Europe to divest from fossil fuels.
• University of Bedfordshire (Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom) – in January 2015, decided to formalize its previously informal decision "not to invest in specific sectors such as fossil fuels."
• University of Bristol (United Kingdom)) – a long campaign to make Bristol University divest from fossil fuels took a major step when Carla Denyer, a Bristol Green Party counciler sitting on one of the University's governance bodies, tabled a divestment motion in November 2015. Despite initial defeats, the campaign succeeded in March 2017.

As of January 2020, according to student campaigning organisation People & Planet, over half of UK universities have now made some form of divestment commitment, pushing the UK further education divestment total above £12 billion.

Religious organizations in the UK

On 30 April 2015, the Church of England agreed to divest £12 million from its tar sands oil and thermal coal holdings. The church has a £9 billion investment fund.

New Zealand

Colleges and universities in New Zealand

• University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand) – in September 2016, the university created an ethical investments policy excluding investment in 'the exploration and extraction of fossil fuels'. The University of Otago was the second university in New Zealand to commit to fossil free investing.
• Victoria University (Wellington, New Zealand) – in December 2014, the university announced its intention to divest all its investments from fossil fuels, becoming the first New Zealand university to do so.

Republic of Ireland

Governments and pension funds in Ireland

Ireland is to be the world's first country to divest public money from fossil fuels.

Sweden

Governments and pension funds in Sweden

• Municipality of Örebro — "The City of Örebro is the first Swedish city to commit to pull its funds out of fossil fuels, in a move to align its investments with its environmental goals. Örebro is the 30th local authority worldwide to take this step, following in the footsteps of cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and the Dutch town of Boxtel.

Colleges and universities in Sweden

• Chalmers University of Technology (Göteborg, Sweden) – in early 2015, the university became the first Swedish university to divest from fossil fuels. The university said it would sell about $600,000 in fossil-fuel holdings.

EU

European Investment Bank

In November 2019, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the world's largest international public lending institution, adopted a strategy to end funding for new, unabated fossil fuel energy projects, including natural gas, from the end of 2021.