Members of the public wearing masks of Councillors Fox, Hollidge and Redstone hold a ‘See no climate crisis, Hear no climate crisis, Speak no climate crisis’ protest outside County Hall, 25 September 2024. Credit: Divest East Sussex
County Councillors given award for ‘climate inaction’ after voting to continue investing in fossil fuels
On Wednesday (25 Sept) the long-delayed vote on fossil fuel divestment finally took place at County Hall in Lewes. Divest East Sussex’s Gabriel Carlyle reports on what happened.
Three County Councillors were presented with a ‘people’s award for climate delay and inaction in service of the fossil fuel industry’ at a meeting of the East Sussex Pension Committee this morning (25 Sept).
The award for ‘climate inaction’ and services to the fossil fuel industry. Credit: Divest East Sussex
Hastings resident and East Sussex Pension Fund member Jane Ripley presented Gerard Fox (Cons, Hailsham New Town), Paul Redstone (Cons, Northern Rother) and Ian Hollidge (Cons, Bexhill South) with the award in the main Council chamber after the three Councillors voted against proposals to divest the East Sussex Pension Fund from the giant fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis.
The East Sussex Pension Fund, which covers Brighton & Hove as well as East Sussex, is administered by East Sussex County Council (ESCC). It currently has millions of pounds of local people’s pension monies invested in oil and gas companies like Shell and BP. The East Sussex Pension Committee is the ultimate decision-making body for the Fund.
Voting on the proposals had been delayed by over a year. The three proposal were rejected by three votes to two this morning, with the remaining members of the East Sussex Pension Committee – Councillor Georgia Taylor (Green, Forest Row & Groombridge) and David Tutt (Lib Dem, Eastbourne – St Anthony’s) – voting in favour.
Following the vote, Ms Ripley – who had been seated in the public gallery – rose and made a short speech (see below), at the end of which she presented the award. Pension Committee chair Fox attempted to silence her, but to no avail.
The pre-vote discussion of the proposals featured some bizarre elements, with Cllr Fox heaping praise on his own work on the Committee, Cllr Redstone reminding everyone for the nth time that he tries to minimise his own personal carbon emissions, and Cllr Hollidge going off on his own strange tangent regarding the Japanese whaling industry.
It was left to Councillors Taylor and Tutt to remind their fellow Councillors that fossil fuel companies occupy a unique position in relation to climate change (a 2017 study found that just 100 fossil fuel and cement companies had been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988) and that these companies’ activities pose a significant medium- and long-term danger to the Fund.
Around twenty members of the public travelled to County Hall from across East Sussex and Brighton & Hove to attend the meeting. However, roughly half of these were prevented from entering the Hall: Council staff informed us that number allowed in had been arbitrarily limited to ten.
Pension Fund member Jane Ripley presents the award in the Council chamber, 25 September 2024. Credit: Divest East Sussex.
Jane Ripley’s speech to the East Sussex Pension Committee:
‘Councillors, today’s meeting was a moment of truth for the East Sussex Pension Fund.
For eleven years now, thousands of East Sussex residents – including hundreds of Pension Fund members like myself – have been calling on the East Sussex Pension Fund to stop investing in the giant fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis.
This isn’t a radical demand or one that is difficult to understand.
It’s simply a fact that the majority of the fossil fuel reserves within active fields and mines must now stay in the ground if we’re to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Indeed, developed oil and gas reserves alone, if fully extracted, would cause cumulative carbon emissions nearly 25% greater than the world’s remaining 1.5°C carbon budget.
And a significant portion – almost one-fifth – of existing oil and gas fields must be shut down, even if no new fields are developed and coal extraction
stops tomorrow.
And yet the fossil fuel system continues to expand.
This is madness.
And to stop this madness institutions like the East Sussex Pension Fund need to stop providing cover for the companies that are pressing ahead with this expansion: the Shells, the BPs and the Conocco Phillips.
It really is that simple.
And yet that’s precisely what you’ve consistently refused to do.
We’ve written to you. We’ve invited you to debate (you refused to defend your record in open debate). We’ve engaged in peaceful protest. We’ve repeatedly forced you as Councillors to debate this issue amongst yourselves.
Bexhill Town Council, Brighton & Hove City Council, Hastings Borough Council, Lewes District and Town Councils, Peacehaven Town Council, Rother District Council, and Saleshurst & Robertsbridge Parish Council have all passed motions calling on this Fund to divest from fossil fuels.
Yet all we’ve seen is procrastination, prevarication, dither and delay.
In the last two years alone, you’ve spent over £50,000 on a whitewash report that re-hashed long-refuted arguments, misrepresented divestment and ignored crucial evidence.
And then you spent a further year delaying today’s votes, eventually producing yet more ‘analysis’ crafted solely, it would appear, to justify continued inaction and further delay.
And now you’ve voted, yet again, not to take the simplest, most basic form of action available to you. One with a proven track record of leading to real world outcomes – a fact that you’ve consistently refused to recognise, or even hear.
Enough!
Since this Fund only appears to respond to awards, today we’re awarding you the people’s award for climate delay and inaction in service of the fossil fuel industry.
So congratulations Councillors Redstone, Hollidge and Fox!
It’s one that you all too richly deserve.’
What’s the main argument in favour of divestment?
The Fund’s long-standing policy of ‘engaging’ with fossil fuel companies has manifestly failed. Indeed, despite many years of engagement not a single major oil and gas company is currently on a 1.5ºC compliant pathway (though some have made non-credible non-binding claims that they will do things so as to intersect with such a pathway in the distant future eg. around 2050).
By contrast, divestment campaigns – which seek to undermine the ‘social licence to operate’ of the targeted companies by getting institutions like pension funds to make highly visible commitments to ditch certain investments – have a proven track record of bringing about ‘restrictive legislation’ against targeted companies. This is exactly what is needed in the case of fossil fuel companies.
What are some of the counter-arguments?
In relation to the East Sussex Pension Fund the following counter-arguments (among others) have been made:
- that ‘avoid[ing] the most deleterious effects of climate change’ is a non-financial ‘quality of life’ issue, which the Fund is therefore free to ignore;
- that it would be too costly. (One estimate is that there would be a one-off cost of £1.5m to ditch the existing investments and then a recurrent annual cost of £2m because of higher fees.);
- that it could lead to ‘intervention by the Secretary of State’, as divesting would (allegedly) force the Fund to invest outside the ‘pooling’ arrangement it shares with 10 other local government pension schemes (and which is supposed to help the member funds reduce costs).
In reality:
- ‘[A]void[ing] the most deleterious effects of climate change’ is an essential financial factor for the Fund. Indeed, according to the Climate Action 100+ investor initiative (of which the Fund is a member): ‘action to cut [global] emissions and avoid the worst impacts of climate change is the only real path to protect long-term investment value and returns.’
- It’s very far from clear that the Fund would need to invest outside its pool or ditch any of its existing investment managers were it to make a noisy and highly public commitment now to fully divest the Fund from fossil fuel extractors ‘within five years’ (as Proposal 1 above proposes) . Indeed, it’s conceivable – perhaps even likely – that the mere threat of ditching them in five years, should they continue to invest in fossil fuel extractors, could change these managers’ behaviour and commitments before there is any need to ditch them (especially if the threat was widely publicised).
- Even if the Fund did have to make a one-off payment of £1.5m to ditch some of its existing managers and its fees subsequently increased by £2m / year, this would hardly be the end of the world for a £4.9bn Fund that receives £157m / year in contributions from its members.
- Is the Secretary of State really going to intervene to tell the Fund that, in order to save a small amount in management fees, it must continue to invest in fossil fuel extractors? This sounds extremely unlikely. But were it to happen (in five years time, with the goal of 1.5°C long dead and fossil fuel companies still expanding the fossil fuel system) then the Fund should welcome this as an opportunity to publicly – and very visibly – challenge the government over the need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels and its failure to take action on this front. Indeed, such action by the government under such circumstances would greatly magnify the impact and significance of the original commitment to divest.
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