Category: Politics

All posts on what Bismarck called “the art of the possible”

Theories for why the University of Toronto divested from fossil fuels

Not mutually exclusive:

  1. They are about to launch a bicentennial fundraising campaign with themes including healthy lives, sustainable future, and the next generation. They feared negative public relations attention if they launched the campaign while continuing to refuse to divest
  2. The university’s investment managers have decided that they can better retain authority and control by choosing how to divest on their own terms, and particularly with little reference to the culpability of the industry
  3. In trying to implement the prior environmental, social, and governance (ESG) screening method, the investment managers at the University of Toronto Asset Management (UTAM) corporation decided that divestment would be easier or better based on their secret internal metrics
  4. The Harvard announcement and COP26 have added to the pressure to announce new efforts
  5. U of T perceived that it was increasingly behind when a growing number of Canadian schools had made divestment commitments
  6. A student-led volunteer campaign persisted through multiple setbacks and core cohort graduations and was sustained by the University of Toronto Leap Manifesto chapter and subsequently the Divestment & Beyond faculty- and union-led campaign after the Toronto350.org / UofT350.org effort

As in the campaign as a whole, the university’s penchant for secrecy makes it challenging to explain or understand their actions. In particular, that includes the parlour trick of setting up your own investment management corporation as a means of evading oversight, by pretending that somehow the advice from this organization should only be available to the administration in secret.

Divest Podcast on the Leap Manifesto U of T divestment campaign

The latest episode of The Divest Podcast features Julia DaSilva from the Leap Manifesto chapter at U of T, the second of three groups to organize divestment campaigns, after the Toronto350.org / UofT350.org campaign and before / concurrently with the faculty/union Divestment & Beyond campaign.

The pro-carbon chorus at COP26

From today’s Globe and Mail:

I know Canada’s major media sources tend to be reflexively pro-fossil, but it’s still remarkable to see people insisting that the industries causing climate change should not be targeted as we try to keep it from destroying us.

Reading about the resistance dilemma

Today I received and began reading George Hoberg’s new book: The Resistance Dilemma: Place-Based Movements and the Climate Crisis.

The usefulness is threefold. It speaks directly to my concern about how the environmentalist focus on resistance isn’t a great match with building a global energy system that will control climate change. It references much of the same literature as my dissertation, so it provides a useful opportunity to check that I haven’t missed anything major. Finally, it’s an example of a complete, recent, and successful piece of Canadian academic writing on the environment and thus a model for the thesis. It’s even about 300 pages, though a lot more fits on a published book page than a 1.5-spaced Microsoft Word page in the U of T dissertation template.

Saying no to climate solutions

In This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein highlights the utility of a “Blockadia” strategy to keep fossil fuels in the ground through local land-based resistance campaigns. As George Hoberg raises in his latest book, and many others have discussed, the inclination of the environmental movement runs more toward stopping and preventing things than toward building solutions. For one thing, they get caught up in what I see as false narratives that corporations are exclusively to blame for climate change, or that somehow the world would be able to use drastically less energy. Environmentalists also tend to see any environmental impact as grounds for opposing a project. Impact on birds is a reason to resist wind; impact on the landscape is a reason to oppose solar; offshore wind may ‘mesmerize crabs.’ They point out that even if we bring climate change under control we will have problems with lost biodiversity, toxic pollution, and many other issues — and thus spread their skepticism about electric vehicles or battery power because of the mineral resource requirements.

All this leaves us in a position where environmentalists are accurately raising the alarm about climate change, while rarely suggesting a path forward for replacing that energy and for providing new energy to the parts of the world that are developing economically. As David MacKay put it at the end of his book:

Because Britain currently gets 90% of its energy from fossil fuels, it’s no surprise that getting off fossil fuels requires big, big changes — a total change in the transport fleet; a complete change of most building heating systems; and a 10- or 20-fold increase in green power.

Given the general tendency of the public to say “no” to wind farms, “no” to nuclear power, “no” to tidal barrages — “no” to anything other than fossil fuel power systems — I am worried that we won’t actually get off fossil fuels when we need to. Instead, we’ll settle for half-measures: slightly-more-efficient fossil-fuel power stations, cars, and home heating systems; a fig-leaf of a carbon trading system; a sprinkling of wind turbines; an inadequate number of nuclear power stations.

We need to choose a plan that adds up. It is possible to make a plan that adds up, but it’s not going to be easy.

We need to stop saying no and start saying yes. We need to stop the Punch and Judy show and get building.

If you would like an honest, realistic energy policy that adds up, please tell all your political representatives and prospective political candidates.

Global energy use is about 576 EJ (5.8 x 1020 J), and world electricity consumption to be about 63 EJ (6.3 x 1019 J). Giving all 7.7 billion people on Earth the 125 kWh/day energy use of the average European would require energy production of 962.5 billion kWh per day (3.5 x 1018 J), or 351.3 trillion kWh per year (1.3 x 1021 J). That’s equivalent to about 45,000 1,000 MW power stations. If we want to avoid climate change in a way that is at all politically plausible, we need to get building.

Related:

Divestment announced at the U of T Governing Council

At yesterday’s meeting, President Gertler announced the new divestment policy. I transcribed the relevant parts of the meeting from the audio:

[16:58] President Meric Gertler: With the latest UN climate change conference, known as COP26, taking place in Glasgow beginning this Sunday, the world’s attention will be focused on the urgency of the climate crisis and measures to address it. In anticipation of this meeting I wrote to our community yesterday providing an update on the university’s approach to investment, operations, and engagement and announcing some new measures to help tackle the huge challenge of climate change. In particular I announced that UTAM will be divesting from its fossil fuel holdings in our endowment — a fund that in total is about $4 billion including some other long-term investments — and that divestment process will begin immediately.

UTAM undertakes to fully divest from direct investments in fossil fuels by the end of 2022, so roughly within the next 12 months. And moreover to divest from indirect investments in fossil fuels, that is in the form of pooled and co-mingled funds that are managed by third-party investment managers, as soon as possible and by no later than 2030. Also, to allocate at least 10% of the endowment, so roughly about $400 million, towards sustainable, low-carbon, and green investment strategies by 2025. And to achieve net-zero emissions in the endowment portfolio by 2050. Related to that last goal, UTAM has become the first university asset manager, and University of Toronto the first university in the world, to join a group called the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance: an alliance which requires us to set and meet five year targets, increasingly stringent, targets that lead us towards the net zero objective by 2050 at the latest.

[18:55] These new commitments build on the tremendous progress already achieved by UTAM to reduce the carbon footprint of its long-term investments by 37% as of this past June 30th. That’s against a 40% reduction goal that it had set for itself by 2030. And in this case the carbon footprint is measured as tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions per million dollars invested. Over the same period UTAM has also shrunk absolute carbon emissions in its portfolio by more than 21%. These reductions have resulted from UTAM’s use of an ESG framework to assess all of its long-term investments in the energy sector, but also across the rest of the economy. The sectors of manufacturing, retail, transportation, construction, and agriculture. Having made this much progress this quickly, and having reduced fossil fuel holdings to roughly 6% of our long-term investments.

The time was right to set new goals, to decarbonize our investments still further. We hope that these actions will inspire other institutional investors and governments at home and abroad to take similar actions, and to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy as they tackle the challenge of climate change. These announcements will complement U of T’s other ambitious plans to fight climate change, including our new climate positive St. George campus plan, which Governors heard about back in the September workshop, a plan that will convert the campus into a net carbon sink by 2050. Our local, national, and global leadership organizations and initiatives like the Canadian Universities’ Climate Charter, the UC3 group of North American universities, and the U7+ global alliance of universities, each of which is working on climate-change-related initiatives.

[21:02] A lot of this work has been championed by our very own Committee on the Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainability, co-chaired by Professor John Robinson and Ron Saporta. For example, pioneering the development of sustainability pathways that students can pursue in any program of study, as well as making available opportunities for students to engage in campus-as-a-living-lab experiences where they can engage in climate-related experiential learning opportunities. And of course this also is complemented by the tremendous amount of research being done across our three campuses, supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, for example we have a new institutional strategic initiative focused on climate-positive technologies, the development and application of energy-saving technologies and practices.

[21:57] So this is, I think you will agree, a comprehensive effort on our part, kind of a watershed moment in the history of the university, and I think contributing to a very important moment in the history of the world. I will say that since the announcement was made yesterday, the response thus far has been overwhelmingly positive. Let me shift to a couple of other items… [ends at 22:20]

[54:00] Meric Gertler: Shashi Kant, I see you have your hand up so we’ll go to you next.

[54:04] Shashi Kant: Thank you Chair, and thank you so much Meric and Trevor for updating us on everything. So first of all, I just want to express Meric on behalf of all my students, and myself, and the staff your leadership in climate change and for the investment and the carbon sink announced, and I think we and our students proudly can say the university walk the talk in terms of sustainability, it’s not that we are talking about sustainability. Also there is the carbon sink only for the St. George campus, I guess the other two campuses will also join on that point soon.

[54:50] I am moved, I am happy with our policy and our commitment for climate change. I am also disturbed, very disturbed on approach to sexual harassment… [ends at 55:05]

[1:03:00] Meric Gertler: Susan, I think you are up next.

Susan Froom: Thank you, and thank you as well to yourself and President Gertler for your reports. I do echo Shashi’s concerns around harassment, I’ll speak to that next item , but now I do want to say thank you to President Gertler for your wonderful announcement yesterday around divestment from fossil fuel investments. It’s a fantastic step forward, I’m glad the university is doing that, and I am very much hoping that U of T will continue to be a leader in this regard and particularly with President Gertler’s latest appointment that may be even easier to do, let’s hope so.

[1:04:10] I also wanted to acknowledge that in the announcement President Gertler did pause to thank the students that pushed the administration to do the right thing, and I just wanted to recall before this body that it was back in March of 2014 that it was the U of T chapter of 350.org that first put this issue on the table formally. There has been a lot of back and forth since then. In some ways President Gertler and the administration went beyond what was asked, which is admirable. In some ways, not as far, which is one reason the challenge kept coming. So it’s something that I think we as a body need to feel good about. This is part of what Governing Council does, it’s a place where these ideas can come forward, can be brought to fruition. Where it allows student activists to bring forward their ideas and the administration to carefully ponder them and implement them. So kudos all around and let’s keep this fight going. [end at 1:05:28]

[1:59:22] Speakers unknown: Thank you Mister Chair. The board received a comprehensive presentation on the [fundraising / development] campaign’s academic priorities and its goals. As part of the ensuing discussions, Mr. Palmer addressed a member’s concern about investment of endowment funds in the fossil fuel industry. Mr. Palmer stated that the campaign would pursue funding for a wide range of academic priorities related to climate change and sustainability, including those referenced earlier in the meeting such as clean tech, climate policy, climate science, etc. He also noted that students were the primary beneficiaries of campaign funding priorities and donations. In response to another member’s question about whether the university’s endowment policies related to fossil fuel divestment would have an impact on fundraising results, Mr. Palmer stated that to date they have not diminished the university’s ability to raise funds and he expected that track record of success would continue into the public phase of the new campaign. That concludes my report. [ends at 2:00:27]

University of Toronto divesting from fossil fuels

Checking through my routine administrative emails today, I was completely surprised to see a message from president Meric Gertler announcing that U of T will divest from fossil fuels:

The evidence of a climate crisis is now incontrovertible. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adds further urgency to the need for individuals, businesses, institutions and governments to act swiftly to respond to this global threat, using every tool available to them. World leaders will begin gathering in Glasgow at the end of this month for the COP26 meeting, where progress in the fight against climate change will be assessed and new strategies to avert a climate catastrophe will be considered.

As owners of financial assets such as endowments and pension funds, universities have both an economic imperative and a moral obligation to manage these assets in ways that encourage carbon emission-reducing behaviour in the wider economy. With the increasing financial risks associated with fossil fuel production – as well as those downstream economic activities that rely heavily on fossil fuels as their energy source – there is a strong motivation for universities to shift their financial capital away from carbon-intensive sectors and firms, and towards those businesses that are leveraging the shift to green energy and carbon-conserving technologies.

…

First, UTAM will divest from investments in fossil fuel companies in the endowment fund beginning immediately. Within the next 12 months, it will divest from all direct investments in fossil fuel companies. For those investments made indirectly, typically through pooled and commingled vehicles managed by third-party fund managers, UTAM will divest from its investments in fossil fuel companies by no later than 2030, and sooner if possible.

Second, UTAM will commit to achieving net zero carbon emissions associated with the endowment portfolio by no later than 2050. Moreover, UTAM has recently joined the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, making the University of Toronto the first university in the world to join this group of institutional investors. Membership in the Alliance compels signatories to achieve progressively demanding targets every five years en route to net zero, ensuring achievement of this ambitious objective in a transparent and accountable way.

Third, UTAM will allocate 10 percent of the endowment portfolio to sustainable and low-carbon investments by 2025. Based on the current size of the endowment, this represents an initial commitment of $400 million to such investments.

…

[I]n the last few years I have heard from many members of the U of T community who have urged me to deploy every means available to address the existential crisis we now face. None have been more eloquent or impassioned than our students, who have the most at stake. I want to thank them – and other members of our community – for their activism and commitment to this important cause. I would also like to acknowledge the important work of the President’s Advisory Committee on Divestment from Fossil Fuels, whose report marked a key milestone in the journey towards today’s announcement.

It will be fascinating to learn more about what prompted the decision. It certainly hasn’t been the result of a highly visible and escalated recent activist campaign. While the Toronto350.org campaign was ongoing, we would often remark that the most helpful thing for us would be if Harvard divested…

The campaign began on April 16th, 2013 when I went to the president’s office for information and ended up meeting with Tony Gray.

Hayhoe on zombie climate denier arguments

Every day I’m bombarded with objections to the evidence for human-caused climate change. Most of them sound respectably scientific, like “climate changes all the time; humans have nothing to do with it.” It’s “the Sun,” or “volcanoes,” or “cosmic rays” that are making it happen, or “it’s not even warming,” some argue.

…

Scientists call these “zombie arguments.” They just won’t die, no matter how often or how thoroughly they’re debunked. And because they won’t die, it’s clear that, when it comes to climate change, you do have to be able to talk about some of the science. But what you don’t have to do is follow it down the rabbit hole. And you don’t have to become a climate scientist, either. The basics are extremely simple, the objections are very common and easily answered, and it makes sense to have a short response at hand.

Not only that, but as I mentioned before, most scientific-sounding objections are really just a thin smoke screen for the real problems. Climate denial originates in political polarization and identity, fueled by the mistaken belief that its impacts don’t matter to us and there’s nothing constructive or even tolerable we can do to fix it. Again, this isn’t only a U.S. problem: an analysis of people across fifty-six countries found that political affiliation and ideology was a much stronger indicator of their opinions on climate change than their education, their life experiences, or even their values.

…

For hundreds of years, we’ve been living as if there’s no tomorrow, running through our resources, putting our entire civilization at risk. And climate scientists are like physicians who have identified a disease that is affecting every member of the human race, including themselves, and no one wants to listen to them.

Hayhoe, Katharine. Saving Us: A Climate Scientists’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Simon & Schuster. 2021. p. 38–9, 64