All Ivy League student governments join forces to push for fossil fuel divestment

The student governments of all eight Ivy League schools signed a joint resolution calling each university to divest entirely from fossil fuels.

The resolution calls upon universities to cease “all new investments in the fossil fuel industry” by the end of the current fiscal year, as well as execute “full divestment of endowment funds from the fossil fuel industry” by fiscal year 2025.

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The legislation alleges that “beyond simply exacerbating natural disasters and creating unprecedented displacement of vulnerable people, climate change poses substantial threat to global food supplies, to world peace, and to the global economy.” In particular “disease pandemics” like COVID-19 would increase in frequency and severity due to climate change.

“Historically, institutions of higher education, and particularly the nation’s most visible and influential institutions, have been effective conduits for social change on issues of moral uncertainty,” continues the resolution. “Experts acknowledge that divestment at scale is an effective way to combat climate change.”

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The student governments claim that fossil fuel worsens discrimination.

“Investing in the fossil fuel industry exacerbates the extreme social and racial inequalities our institutions strive to help solve,” the resolution states. “Climate change perpetuates inequality between developed and developing nations by placing most of its consequence on nations that have contributed the least.”

The resolution also alleges that the fossil fuel industry is “uniquely responsible” for climate change.

Calls for fossil fuel divestment are increasing in prevalence on American college campuses.

Recently, Campus Reform reported that student council members at the University of Virginia passed a bill demanding that the school divest from fossil fuel holdings.

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“We have worked for the past five years as DivestUVA to advocate for the divestment of university funds from fossil fuel-based entities,” reads the legislation. “We believe that our endowment investments are a tool to either foster the change we would like to see in our local and global communities or to continue to uphold existing racially and environmentally unjust power structures that, as an institution, we publicly decry.”

Campus Reform reached out to all eight Ivy League universities for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @BenZeisloft