Climate campaigners call on North Yorkshire Council Pension Fund to step up divestment from fossil fuels

Campigners have written to North Yorkshire Councillors to ask them to support the case for divestment by the NYC pension fund committee from fossil fuels and their reinvestment into sustainable projects.

Fossil Free North Yorkshire (FFNY) set up in 2020, has met the council pension fund committee on a number of occasions and has welcomed the reduction in investments to about 1.8% of the total fund.

The letter points out that the Council’s Climate Change Strategy says that: ‘every service delivered by North Yorkshire Council will consider how it will take climate responsible actions and support the region to be net zero by 2034 and carbon negative by 2040’ and asks ‘that where such funds continue to be a part of the pension fund then the associated carbon emissions are included in the council’s carbon footprint.’

The campaigners are heartened by the unanimous decision in June by East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC) to halt all new fossil fuel investments and fully divest from existing fossil fuel funds within five years.

Councillor Andy Walker, (Yorkshire Party), who proposed the motion, said: “It is crazy that our pensions are investing in fossil fuels when they are the very things that are jeopardising what we are saving for”.

Commenting Dr Margaret Jackson from Fossil Free North Yorkshire said: “Although the outcome of the recent COP in UAE was felt to be disappointing by many, it did signal, with the “transition away from fossil fuels”, the beginning of the end of coal, oil and gas.

"Pension funds and other investors should take note and move away from these investments before they become stranded.”