Has the East Sussex Pension Fund’s £50k whitewash report accidentally shown how *easy* it would be for it to divest from fossil fuels?

In July 2022, the East Sussex Pension Fund commissioned a report on the relative merits of divestment vs engagement.

Last week a summary of this report – which may have cost the Fund as much as £50k to produce – was finally placed in the public domain.

Judging by this summary, the report appears to have been a significant missed opportunity: re-hashing long-refuted arguments; taking industry claims about engagement at face value; chasing red-herrings; misrepresenting divestment; and ignoring crucial evidence.

Nonetheless, it also appears to have (almost accidentally) shown that fossil fuel divestment – at least when understood in the sense that campaigners have been using it for the last 12 years – would be fairly straightforward for the Fund to implement and would have no significant negative repercussions for the Fund’s overall strategy.

This situation has arisen because, despite a ten-year-long campaign, the Fund and its advisers have consistently failed to take on board: (a) what divestment campaigners have actually been calling for; (b) why they’ve been calling for it; and (c) the time-frame for implementation that campaigners have been demanding.

As Upton Sinclair observed long ago: ‘It is difficult to get a [someone] to understand something when [their] salary depends upon [them] not understanding it.’

We examine some of these points in greater depth below.

PRESS RELEASE: Campaigners take words and images from Earth’s ‘three hottest months on record’ to County Hall

Press release
Divest East Sussex [1]
Tuesday 19 September 2023
More info: 07596 483 272

PHOTO: https://tinyurl.com/divestfrontpages; https://tinyurl.com/divestfrontpages2; https://tinyurl.com/divestfrontpages3 [CAPTION: Divestment campaigners outside County Hall, 19 September 2023. PHOTO: Steve Lewis]

CLIMATE CAMPAIGNERS TAKE WORDS AND IMAGES FROM EARTH’S ‘THREE HOTTEST MONTHS ON RECORD’ TO COUNTY HALL
Crucial votes on fossil fuel divestment postponed until February meeting

Tuesday 19 September 2023, County Hall, Lewes: Campaigners from East Sussex and Brighton processed through the streets of Lewes to County Hall this morning (19 Sept) to demand that East Sussex County Council (ESCC) stop investing in fossil fuels. The protest was timed to coincide with an important Council meeting about the issue.

Carrying giant A1-sized reproductions of dramatic front-page newspaper coverage of the climate crisis from July – the hottest month ever recorded [2] – they then used an amplifier to play excerpts from recent speeches by the world’s leading diplomat, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, into County Hall.

The East Sussex Pension Committee – the five-person decision-making body for the East Sussex Pension Fund – had been expected to vote this morning on whether the Fund should continue to invest in the fossil fuel companies, like Shell and BP, that are driving the climate crisis. However, in the end votes on three divestment proposals proposed by Cllrs Georgia Taylor (Green, Forest Row & Groombridge) and David Tutt (Liberal Democrat, Eastbourne – St Anthony’s), have been deferred to the Committee’s February 2024 meeting [3].

PRESS RELEASE: Climate campaigners to take words and images from earth’s ‘three hottest months on record’ to County Hall on morning of crucial vote on fossil fuels

Press release
Divest East Sussex [1]
Monday 18 September 2023
More info: 07596 483 272

PHOTO: https://tinyurl.com/taxbigoildivest [CAPTION: Divestment campaigners outside County Hall, 21 March 2023. PHOTO: Natasa Leoni]

CLIMATE CAMPAIGNERS TO TAKE WORDS AND IMAGES FROM EARTH’S ‘THREE HOTTEST MONTHS ON RECORD’ TO COUNTY HALL ON MORNING OF CRUCIAL VOTE ON FOSSIL FUELS

Tuesday 19 September 2023, 8.15am, Lewes: Campaigners from East Sussex and Brighton will be holding a protest at County Hall in Lewes this Tuesday (19 September) to demand that East Sussex County Council (ESCC) stop investing in fossil fuels, on the morning of a crucial vote on the issue.

Assembling outside Lewes train station at 8.15am, the campaigners will be carrying giant A1-sized reproductions of dramatic front-page newspaper coverage of the climate crisis from July – the hottest month ever recorded [2].

Once at the Hall they will also use an amplifier to play excerpts from recent speeches by the world’s leading diplomat, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, into County Hall, where the Councillors on the East Sussex Pension Committee will be meeting. The Committee – the decision-making body for the East Sussex Pension Fund – is expected to vote on whether the Fund should continue to invest in the fossil fuel companies, like Shell and BP, that are driving the climate crisis.

Please send postcards to the Councillors blocking divestment in time for the vote on 19 September!

On Tuesday 19 September the East Sussex Pension Fund will vote, yet again, on whether to continue investing in fossil fuels or make a very public (and well publicised) commitment to divest from them.

Before then, we need your help to build still further moral pressure on the three Conservative Councillors who are blocking divestment.

Please send one or more of them a postcard, in time to reach them before the 19 September. Just write your name, address and a simple polite divestment message (eg. ‘It’s time to stop investing in fossil fuels!’).

Their addresses are:

Cllr Paul Redstone, Edgingtons, Cripps Corner, Robertsbridge, TN32 5RY

Cllr Ian Hollidge, 79 College Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, TN40 1TN

Cllr Gerard Fox, County Hall, c/o Democratic Services, West E, St Anne’s Crescent, Lewes, BN7 1UE