Climate campaigners take words and images from Earth’s ‘three hottest months on record’ to County Hall

As campaigners from across East Susssex braved the wind and rain to take words and images from Earth’s ‘three hottest months on record’ to County Hall last Tuesday (19 September), the East Sussex Pension Fund postponed voting on fossil fuel divestment until February 2024. Gabriel Carlyle from Divest East Sussex reports.

Campaigners from East Sussex and Brighton processed through the streets of Lewes to County Hall on Tuesday (19 Sept) to demand that East Sussex County Council (ESCC) stop investing in fossil fuels. The protest had been timed to coincide with an important Council meeting about the issue.

Carrying giant reproductions of dramatic front-page newspaper coverage of the climate crisis from July – the hottest month ever recorded – they then used an amplifier to play excerpts from recent speeches by the world’s leading diplomat, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, into County Hall.

The East Sussex Pension Committee – the five-person decision-making body for the East Sussex Pension Fund – had been expected to vote this morning on whether the Fund should continue to invest in the fossil fuel companies, like Shell and BP, that are driving the climate crisis. However, in the end votes on three divestment proposals proposed by Cllrs Georgia Taylor (Green, Forest Row & Groombridge) and David Tutt (Liberal Democrat, Eastbourne – St Anthony’s), have been deferred to the Committee’s February 2024 meeting.

The East Sussex Pension Fund, which covers Brighton & Hove as well as East Sussex, is administered by ESCC. It currently has tens of millions of pounds of local people’s pension monies invested in oil and gas companies like Shell and BP.

The Fund’s investments in fossil fuel companies have been the focus of a ten-year campaign by East Sussex and Brighton residents. Rother District Council, Robertsbridge Parish Council, Bexhill Town Council, Hastings Borough Council, Brighton & Hove City Council, Lewes Town & District Councils and Peacehaven Town Council have all publicly backed divestment from fossil fuels, but the Fund has consistently refused to stop investing in these companies [5].

July was the hottest month ever recorded, with extreme heatwaves in the US, Mexico, Southern Europe and China, deadly floods in India and Pakistan and record wildfire in Canada.

‘No more excuses’

In February Guterres – the world’s leading diplomat – stated that there must be: ‘No more excuses. No more greenwashing. No more bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.’

In June he noted that: ‘The fossil fuel industry is at the heart of the climate crisis. The problem is not simply fossil fuel emissions. It’s fossil fuels – period. The solution is clear: The world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way — moving to leave oil, coal and gas in the ground where they belong – and massively boosting renewable investment in a just transition.’

As long as it continues to cling on to its remaining investments in fossil fuel companies, ESCC is effectively providing a fig-leaf for these companies’ ongoing attempts to block effective climate action and missing a huge opportunity to show real leadership on the climate crisis.

By contrast, a public commitment to ditch these investments (‘divestment’) would send a powerful signal to policymakers to get serious about tackling the climate emergency, which requires the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels.

Moreover, the recent analysis of these issues commissioned by the Fund appears to show that the commitment that we’ve long been calling for would be fairly straightforward to implement and would have no significant negative repercussions for the Fund’s overall strategy.

It’s time for ESCC to change tack and make a commitment to fully divest from the fossil fuel companies that are driving the climate crisis.

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