By Verghese V Joseph
Ever since its launch by students as a moral call to climate action in 2011, the fossil fuel divestment campaign has become a mainstream financial movement mobilizing trillions of dollars in support of the clean energy transition. Commitments to divest continue to grow rapidly: Today, nearly 1,000 institutional investors with $6.24 trillion in assets have committed to divest from fossil fuels, up from $52 billion four years ago—an increase of 11,900 percent.
Interestingly, faith-based organizations are divesting in higher numbers, with an additional 138 institutions committing since 2016. Influenced by Pope Francis and other church leaders, the Catholic climate movement has continued to expand dramatically over the past two years, with 103 Catholic commitments to date.
Catholic institutions are increasingly organizing coalitions to increase faith-based climate action. Over 40 Catholic institutions across five continents including Indian Catholic Matters (ICM) and Caritas from India have committed to divest in the largest joint announcement to date. Indian Catholic Matters supports Global Catholic Climate Movement.
In addition, the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference announced its divestment commitment on the eve of Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland this past August. It also signed on to the global Catholic fossil-free pledge signifying its commitment to “the growing social movement, led by young people across the world, calling for the realignment of our financial policies to safeguard their future.”17 On September 10, 19 additional Catholic institutions representing 12 countries will collectively commit to divest. Recognizing “the huge impact of climate change on the poor,” Chika Onyejiuwa, executive secretary of Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network, noted the group’s commitment “to stay away completely from fossil fuel investments and to encourage others to divest.”
Caritas India, a humanitarian relief agency led by the Catholic Church in India, recently announced its commitment to divest from fossil fuels and is an example of the growing Catholic divestment movement. The organization provides development and social welfare support to marginalized and vulnerable communities and offers humanitarian assistance to communities impacted by climate-related disasters. The organization draws a link between the impacts of natural disasters it witnesses and a global dependency on fossil fuels.
According to Father Paul Moonjely, the organization’s executive director, “fossil fuel use is part of the power dynamics that marginalize our most vulnerable sisters and brothers.” He noted that the organization decided to divest “to protect and conserve the environment for the betterment of humanity.” In addition to divesting from fossil fuels, Caritas India has committed to promote sustainable energy sources for vulnerable communities.
Pope Francis calls to “keep it in the ground” Earlier this year, Pope Francis gathered leaders of the world’s largest oil companies, including the chairman of ExxonMobil and the chief executive of BP, for a two-day conference to deliver a message about the urgency of their actions on climate change. Building on the Pope’s 2015 encyclical Laudato si’, which highlighted climate change as a global issue and called for meaningful action to protect the environment, the pope called on the leaders of the fossil fuel industry to become leaders of the global energy transition. In his call to develop new approaches and technologies that support the people and planet, he emphasized that the poor would “suffer most from the ravages of global warming,” and that a transition to clean energy “is a duty that we owe toward millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, poorer countries, and generations yet to come.”
The recently created C40 Divest/ Invest Forum65 supports and connects cities interested in divestment from fossil fuels and sustainable reinvestment.
Globally, the faith-based community continues to push for both financial and lifestyle commitments that will reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. At COP23, the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, interfaith, and Unitarian faith leaders announced an initiative to build a sustainable living movement. The COP23 Interfaith Climate Statement on Sustainable Lifestyles, entitled “Walk on Earth Gently,” bade faith leaders to adopt sustainable behaviours that enable society to hold warming to 1.5°C, including dramatically reducing emissions from home energy use, adopting a plant-based diet and reducing food waste, and minimizing automobile and air travel.