Some well meaning individuals and organizations have advocated that we try to engage fossil fuel companies to encourage them to be more responsible. However, there is no evidence to support the effectiveness of such advocacy with fossil fuel companies. Shareholder advocacy with fossil fuel companies has been a dismal failure. It makes no sense to devote energy into a failed strategy.
Divestment exposes and pressures the industry in ways that engagement cannot. Even if shareholder advocacy worked, it typically takes years and we simply do not have that much time to begin radically reducing atmospheric carbon.
We have five time more carbon reserves than we can burn. To succeed in managing the climate crisis we must find ways to leave known fossil fuel reserves in the ground.
As exposed by leaked memos from Exxon the fossil fuel industry has known about climate change for decades and yet they have shown no inclination to do anything about it.
In fact, in the last decade, many oil and gas companies have sold their wind and solar operations and have used shareholder dollars to fund high cost and environmentally destructive extraction such as Tar Sands and offshore oil drilling.
Unfortunately, the industry’s history is defined by this kind of short-sighted activity – by funding climate deniers, shirking responsibility for global warming and now opposing carbon emissions rules for coal plants.
Now is the time to move our money away from fossil fuels and into companies that are working to build a livable future.
The coal / oil and gas divisions of many companies have experienced substantial financial losses, in some cases resulting in job losses in what seems to be unrelated markets. More needs to be done to support changing day to day actions so that green practices prevail.
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