Submission: UC Regents must decide whether to fully commit to climate leadership

On Feb. 26, members from Fossil Free UCLA met with the UC Board of Regents’ Committee on Investments, or the COI, to present their case for fossil fuel divestment. In light of the Paris COP21 climate agreement and the recent UC coal and tar sands divestment in September, students were hopeful that they could depend on the regents to take their own environmental, social and governance policy seriously and move forward with full divestment from fossil fuels.

Instead, Regent Paul Wachter gave a vague and noncommittal response, expressing that divestment conversations were hard and that the UC was already doing more than most universities to promote sustainability. But we know that the urgency of climate change calls for the UC to hold itself to higher standards than, “We’re doing more than Sally and Jimmy.” The UC cannot call itself a true climate leader when at the same time it profits from investments in fossil fuel companies, whose business model is built upon polluting our communities and destroying our planet.

The fossil fuel divestment movement calls on universities and public institutions to divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies with the largest carbon reserves. Since the creation of the Fossil Free UC divestment campaign in 2012, fossil fuel divestment has grown into an international movement. As of 2016, over 500 institutions all over the world have fully or partially divested from fossil fuels, totaling $3.4 trillion of assets withheld from coal, oil and gas companies. The movement is supported by a wide cross section of society, from multiracial communities fighting on the front lines of fossil fuel extraction to the Bank of England, which recently warned of financial risks in continuing to invest in the fossil fuel industry. The UC can prove itself to be a real climate leader by joining fellow public institutions and universities in divesting its $91 billion investment portfolio from fossil fuel companies.

Students, faculty and alumni from many UC campuses are calling for fossil fuel divestment. Already, UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council has passed a resolution calling for the UC regents to divest from fossil fuel companies. Student governments and academic senates from across the UC system have likewise passed resolutions in support of fossil fuel divestment.

Time and time again, UC students have rallied the UC Regents to set precedence for ethical investments. In the 1980s, student protests successfully pressured the UC Regents to divest $3.1 billion from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. In 2001, the regents voted to permanently exclude investments in tobacco, citing financial risk and health effects of tobacco use. In 2006, UC students through the UC Sudan Divestment Taskforce convinced the regents to divest $2.6 billion from Sudanese companies with ties to the Darfur genocide. In 2015, students convinced the UC to divest $200 million from coal and tar sands companies and $30 million from private prisons.

Though divesting from coal and tar sands represents a promising start, the UC still remains invested in oil and gas companies. Because climate change continues to wreak havoc in California and around the world, it is unconscionable for our university to fund climate denial and environmental injustice. The UC cannot prepare students for a better future while it also remains complicit in the destruction of our planet. The UC cannot uphold social mobility and equality of opportunity while also ignoring the fact that those most impacted by climate change are people of color and low-income communities. By investing in dirty and outdated fossil fuels, the UC contributes to an inequitable and uninhabitable world and bets on companies that create and perpetuate injustice.

With Wachter stepping down from his position as chair of the COI, Regent Richard Sherman is set to take his place. UC students present Sherman, the new COI chair, an opportunity to be the climate champion this university desperately needs. Sherman can side with the global leaders of COP21, UC students, faculty and alumni by aligning UC investments with a just and sustainable future, or he can side with an increasingly obsolete fossil fuel industry by denying the UC real climate leadership. UC students demand to know from Sherman: Whose side are you on?

Lu is a third-year sociology student. Tran is a fourth-year sociology student. They are co-chairs of Fossil Free UCLA.