It complicates the process of completing my PhD dissertation, but there has been highly encouraging movement from administrations targeted by fossil fuel divestment campaigns. While McGill has again said no, Concordia and UBC have pledged to go beyond their prior partial commitments and entirely divest from fossil fuels:
- Concordia University Foundation to divest and aim for 100% sustainable investments by 2025
- UBC board declares climate emergency and will examine how to fully divest from fossil fuel companies
The movement has generally had a hard time in Canada, perhaps because of the size and influence of the fossil fuel industry.
I’m working this week on finishing my NVivo coding of interviews, then moving on next week to finishing the literature review. Spending the rest of the month working on a finalized and complete manuscript, I will need to make sure to mention new developments without expressing false confidence about my ability to explain something which happened so recently and which I don’t have independent data about.
That is very exciting and promising and you were very much involved and part of this paradigm shift. Well done!
I will be very interested in reading subsequent accounts and analyses of the recent policy changes at UBC, Concordia, and SFU.
I feel like it’s probably factors exogenous to the campaigns which explain it, though their persistence has been a necessary factor. We’re definitely seeing a change in the narrative about climate change and investment as the ideas present from the beginning of the CFFD movement in 2012 permeate into institutions and the public discourse.
MAJOR DIVESTMENT WIN!
In Committing to Explore Full Divestment, UBC is Finally Breaking Its Ties with the Fossil Fuel Industry
This progress is built on what others, including you have done in advancing this movement
It will be a while before we have a good explanation for the latest decisions, but I am pretty open to the idea that universities ultimately use a quasi-chaotic decision making style: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_can_model Still, the more positive precedents of divestment exist the easier it is to assuage the fears of opponents and build support.
It was only yesterday that my lit review reached this, one of the most detailed and informative accounts of the US movement so far: Fossil fuel divestment: implications for the future of sustainability discourse and action within higher education