UQ Climate Action Now! (formerly Fossil Free UQ) is a climate action collective, part of the global movement for climate action and the international campaign calling on institutions to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in solutions to climate change. UQ Climate Action Now! (UQCAN!) Is part of an international campaign calling on institutions to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in solutions to climate change. Learn more at gofossilfree.org. One important aspect of UQ’s ecological footprint that we would like to bring the University’s attention to is responsible financial investment.
UQ’s 2012 financial statements list $105 million of UQ’s assets invested either in a managed portfolio or directly in listed and unlisted shares. It is reasonable to expect that a significant fraction of this is currently invested in companies that produce fossil fuels. It is now widely understood that we cannot safely burn even one-third of global fossil-fuel reserves without dangerously warming the planet for several thousand years. We are already witnessing the increasing impacts of a warming planet more and more consistently; in the last year alone our country experienced record-breaking heat, droughts, and extreme rainfall. These events had a grave impact on hundreds of thousands of people and cost our country billions of dollars. Experts agree that global warming caused by humans burning fossil fuels will continue to accelerate and intensify these tragic climate disasters. Adopting the Brundtland definition of sustainability, continued fossil fuel extraction and consumption is inconsistent with the rights of future generations to a safe and habitable world and is therefore unsustainable.
Through its current investment portfolio, UQ is facilitating and profiting from the continued and expanding extraction and burning of fossil fuels, despite the harm that these practices are known to be causing to many millions of people worldwide. Over past decades, universities have shown vision and leadership through divesting from the South African Apartheid regime, cluster munitions, and tobacco, and increasingly now from fossil fuels. We believe such action on behalf of UQ will contribute to the wellbeing of current and future students who deserve the opportunity to graduate with a future not defined by climate chaos. We also believe such action would be a sound decision for our institution’s financial portfolio, given falling coal and gas prices, rising costs and a high exchange rate all associated with fossil fuel projects, current and prospective. Furthermore, policies which effectively mitigate climate change pose a risk to the value of fossil fuel companies’ assets. To preserve the quality of life for this and future generations worldwide, we call upon you to join a growing movement of universities and institutions around the world that have committed to preventing a more extreme climate by moving UQ’s investment portfolio beyond fossil fuels. (sourced from Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UQClimateActionNow/ 7/6/21)
Climate Action Now! (UQ CAN!) is a climate action collective, part of the global movement for climate action and the international campaign calling on institutions to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in solutions to climate change. We believe that UQ has a responsibility to be a leader in the fight against climate action. Our goal is to educate and act to ensure climate justice. We are demanding that UQ divest from fossil fuels (learn more at gofossilfree.org), and acknowledge that we are in a climate crisis (learn more at https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/why-universities-need-declare-ecological-and- climate-emergency). If UQ is serious about their vision for ‘knowledge leadership for a better world’ then we demand that the university ensures that we are applying the science surrounding climate change and taking action to prevent further deleterious impacts which are directly linked to the climate crisis. Join us to help create a better world, because UQ CAN!s to discuss politics and why we need an alternative to capitalism. The world is undergoing a climate crisis – we are already witnessing the increasing impacts of a warming planet; in the last year alone our country experienced record-breaking heat, huge bushfires causing mass devastation and habitat loss, droughts, and extreme rainfall and flooding. These events have had a grave impact on hundreds of thousands of people, cost our country billions of dollars, and are driving many of our unique species towards extinction. Experts agree that human-induced global warming will continue to accelerate and intensify these tragic climate disasters. If we do not take action, we will face an uncertain future. It is now widely understood that we cannot safely burn even one-third of global fossil-fuel reserves without dangerously warming the planet for several thousand years. Adopting the Brundtland definition of sustainability, continued fossil fuel extraction and consumption is inconsistent with the rights of future generations to a safe and habitable world, and is therefore unsustainable. As a leading research institute – boasting the global top rank for conservation science – UQ must act responsibly and immediately to curb our contribution to the climate crisis.
The aims of UQ CAN are:
1) To generate systemic changes at UQ that integrate climate change and sustainability throughout the University’s research, teaching, operations and outreach: to minimise the university’s ecological footprint and take a leading role in addressing these issues in our society.
2) To raise awareness and understanding of climate change and environmental sustainability within the University community.
3) To enable and motivate students and staff to act, collectively and in their own lives, to help reach a safer climate and sustainable society.
4) To work with other organisations and contribute to the wider movement for a safe climate and transitions to sustainability, in Australia and globally.
One important aspect of UQ’s ecological footprint that we would like to bring to the University’s attention is responsible financial investment. The 2018 UQ Annual Report demarcates two investment funds; the “UQ Investment Fund” and the “UQ Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Green Fund”, which will not invest in companies involved with tobacco, armaments, pornography and fossil fuels “as they are not deemed socially responsible investments”. The former amounts to a total of $224.3 million, sitting in stark contrast to the $3.4 million socially responsible investments. This discrepancy is a clear demonstration of the university’s priorities. We want to emphasise that divestment is more than just a monetary issue: it is an effort to take back the social licence of fossil fuel companies to pollute our earth. If institutions do not take a stance against these corporations soon, it will be too late to do anything at all. Over past decades, universities have shown vision and leadership through divesting from the South African Apartheid regime, cluster munitions, and tobacco, and increasingly now from fossil fuels. We believe such action on behalf of UQ will contribute to the wellbeing of current and future students who deserve the opportunity to graduate with a future not defined by climate chaos. As a collective, we are actively participating in climate justice – recognising the devastating impacts climate change is having on all aspects of society. Climate change is real, and it is here – please join our club to fight against the university inaction on climate change issues and together we can create a better world.