A campaigner wearing a mask of East Sussex Pension Committee chair Gerard Fox reads a ‘greenwash’ statement outside County Hall, 6 December 2022. PHOTO: Steve Lewis

County Council ducks key question on fossil fuel investments

Council must stop ‘providing political cover’ for fossil fuel companies investing in new oil & gas say campaigners. Gabriel Carlyle reports.

Climate campaigners have accused East Sussex County Council (ESCC) of failing to answer a key question about its continued investment in the giant fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis.

Over ninety members of the public, from across East Sussex, Brighton and Hove, submitted a question to today’s (7 Feb) Full Council meeting, asking whether ESCC accepted ‘that asset owners seeking 1.5°C-aligned portfolios cannot credibly own financial interests in companies that continue to invest in new oil and gas projects’.

The chair of the East Sussex Pension Committee (Gerard Fox) failed to directly answer the question in his response.

The East Sussex Pension Fund, which is administered by East Sussex County Council (ESCC), currently has tens of millions of pounds of local people’s pension monies invested in the giant oil and gas companies, like Shell and BP, that are driving the climate crisis. The Fund covers Brighton & Hove as well as East Sussex.

“We need disruption to end the destruction. No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing. No more bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.”
UN Secretary General António Guterres,
6 February 2023

The 91 members of the public who submitted the question, noted that: ‘In 2021 the International Energy Agency clearly stated that if the world is going to limit global warming to 1.5°C “there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year”. Yet, in 2023 oil and gas companies are on a massive expansion course. Indeed, a recent analysis of the 685 upstream companies on the GOGEL (a database of 901 oil and gas companies, collectively responsible for 95% of global oil and gas production) found that 96% have expansion plans. Moreover, European and North American companies like Shell and Exxon are leading the way eg. Shell spent almost $7bn during 2020 – 22 exploring for new oil and gas.’

Campaigners give East Sussex County Council a special award for ‘Special Services to the Oil & Gas Industry’, 1 April 2022. PHOTO: Divest East Sussex

Last year saw devastating floods displace more than 30 million people in Pakistan, Europe experience what may be its worst drought in 500 years, and China experience the most severe heatwave ever recorded anywhere.

According to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres these events demonstrate ‘the sheer inadequacy of the global response to the climate crisis, and the betrayal and injustice at the heart of it’, with ‘fossil fuel corporations killing the planet to rake in the most’.

On Monday, Guterres told the UN General Assembly: ‘I have a special message for fossil fuel producers and their enablers scrambling to expand production and raking in monster profits: If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero, with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business. Your core product is our core problem. We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence.’

A spokesperson for Divest East Sussex told HOT: ‘On Monday the world’s leading diplomat sent an excoriating message to “fossil fuel producers and their enablers” noting that “we need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence”. Yet on Tuesday all we have is more greenwash from Councillor Fox and East Sussex County Council. Indeed, the Council couldn’t even bring itself to admit the simple and obvious truth: that you can’t credibly claim to be acting on the climate crisis if at the same time you’re investing in – and providing political cover for – the fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis by continuing to invest in new fossil fuels.’

Divest East Sussex’s petition to the County Council, calling on it to make a public commitment to fully divest from fossil fuels – and support a proper loophole-free windfall tax on Big Oil – can be found online here.

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