Friends and Global Divestment Day

Quakers were among those to mark Global Divestment Day on 14 February

Huddersfield Quakers have decided to divest from companies with links to the coal, oil and gas sectors. The decision was taken at a Meeting held earlier this month in the Meeting house in Paddock.

The Local Meeting has financial reserves of approximately £35,000. All investments and bank holdings will be reviewed with immediate effect and any connected with fossil fuel investments will be dropped.

The decision to divest was proposed by Huddersfield Friend Chayley Collis. She said: ‘Scientists are telling us that eighty per cent of known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground to prevent catastrophic temperature rises. The business plan of the fossil fuel industry is clearly incompatible with a liveable planet.’

Huddersfield Meeting’s decision came in the run-up to Global Divestment Day, 14 February. Activities took place around the world to highlight the growth of the fossil fuel divestment movement and to encourage organisations to invest in clean technology.

In Oxford eye-catching street theatre dominated the Oxford event, accompanied by the local ‘Sea Green Singers’. Local Quakers are very active in both SGS and Fossil Free Oxford.

Helen Drewery, general secretary of Quaker Peace & Social Witness, said that we cannot continue to exploit fossil fuels ‘if we are to have any chance of preventing catastrophic climate change, and we know that clean green affordable alternatives exist.’

Quakers were also part of a diverse group gathered at City Hall in London to call on the Greater London Authority to publicly ‘support the principle of divestment and to commit to avoiding all investments in fossil fuels’, to use their power to pressure the London Pension Fund to divest and to provide fossil free investment options.

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