To Queen’s University Investment Committee and Principal Patrick Deane:
We the undersigned join Queen’s Backing Action on the Climate Crisis (QBACC) in urging you to divest the $1.492 billion endowment fund from fossil fuels immediately.
The United Nations Paris Agreement formulated in 2015, set a target to keep the rising global surface temperature under a 1.5°C increase from pre-industrial levels by 2030, in order to limit the irreversible impacts of climate change. According to the 2023 Climate Change Synthesis Report created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global surface temperature between 1850-2020 has risen 1.1°C due to anthropogenic activity. There is very little time left to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations to achieve this target. Accordingly, there has also been a significant increase in greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. 42% of the net carbon dioxide emissions between 1850-2019 were produced in the last 30 years. In 2019, the largest portion of human caused GHG emissions were derived from fossil fuel combustion.
Just as investment means to input resources into a specific organization, divestment means the opposite; removing stocks from a company for financial, political, or social reasons. Divestment has historically been used as a political tool to create stigmatization of an industry. By characterizing money as an extension of one’s values, investors are forced to confront the larger social and environmental consequences of their actions through public shame. Through divestment, Queen’s would join notable institutions like Brown University (2020), Columbia University (2017), Cornell University (2020), University of Toronto (2022), and the latest university being NYU (2023), in divesting over $5 billion. Queen’s as an individual stakeholder in fossil fuel investment has the ability to cultivate the awareness of other influential investors on the environmental devastation that fossil fuels are responsible for through divestment and urge them to divest as well. QBACC maintains that climate change urgency requires swift action, and gradual transitions may not align with the planet's ticking clock.
If you would like to learn more about divestment at Queen’s please read our 2024 updated information package as well as the 2019 QBACC - Investing in a Sustainable Future report.
* In accordance with the Responsible Investing Policy of the Board of Trustees consistent with the University’s Fiduciary Responsibilities
