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Pictures: Extinction Rebellion activists hang banners over Nottingham bridges

Open letter to Nottinghamshire Pension Fund: Invest to enhance well-being

Dear Committee Members,

We are writing on behalf of Extinction Rebellion Nottingham’s fossil fuel divestment campaign. We would like to begin by expressing our very strong hope that all of you and your families are well.

The Covid-19 pandemic is causing very great suffering and hardship in the UK and globally. We know it has created many issues for pension funds due to stock market falls. We would like to thank Committee members and County Council Officers for your stewardship of the Fund in this very difficult time.

Alongside urgent pandemic concerns and priorities, the climate and ecological emergency continues to advance. While environmental damage and extreme weather events have mostly been absent from mainstream media recently, they continue around the world.

The climate and ecological emergency represents an even more fundamental and enduring crisis than the current pandemic. It is a global disaster in slow motion, which has already begun, but which can – with the right decisions made now – be halted.

We are seeing in the response to the Covid-19 crisis at government, corporate and community levels that we value life and well-being above all else, and that action will be taken to protect it.

The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, Dr Fatih Birol, has called for government stimulus spending in response to Covid-19 to address the climate emergency by focusing on clean energy, energy efficiency and electricity network improvements[1].

We call on the Pension Fund to play its part in addressing the emergency, protect life and enhance well-being by increasing equity investments in companies working in these areas.

We applaud your investments in green infrastructure to date, and ask that they also be increased to enhance renewable energy generation, transmission and storage.

Equally, divesting from fossil fuel companies which are every day making the emergency more severe would be a positive step in itself and free up extra capital for sustainable investments.

This makes investment sense. Clean energy and its associated industries represent predictable returns and massive future growth.

By contrast, the fossil fuel industry is in long-term decline. This decline will be characterised by ongoing volatility affecting oil, gas and share prices as demand shrinks and producing nations and companies compete to out-supply each other. Any short-term cooperation between producer nations will inevitably break when individual countries decide it is time to ‘cash-out’ while a market still exists.

We are delighted to hear that Legal & General Investment Management has announced the creation of a fossil free fund, in response to client demand. We know that Nottinghamshire Pension Fund aspires to be at the forefront of responsible investment, and accordingly expect that the approximately £1.5bn under LGIM management will be moved into the new fund when it is launched. We hope that the Committee will be discussing this as soon meetings are able to resume.

Many thanks for your time and your ongoing work.

Yours sincerely,

Members of the Divestment Working Group

Extinction Rebellion Nottingham

[1] https://www.iea.org/commentaries/how-to-make-the-economic-recovery-from-coronavirus-an-environmentally-sustainable-one

Covid19 is causing massive disruption, uncertainty and a myriad of challenges for us all and for our Rebellion. We’ve currently taken the decision to either cancel, or put on notice, all of our larger in-person events (although it’s not our place to tell Working Groups, Affinity Groups or individual Rebels not to meet in person if they wish) as a precaution. So….

ONLINE WHOLE GROUP MEETINGS VIA ZOOM

We have set up three whole group meetings to be held online using Zoom (see below for details)

Each will be 1.5hrs long and take the same format:

• 30mins : Setup – log in and get used to the zoom interface and features.
• 60mins : Meeting. The proposed agenda will be 10-15mins of information on what is currently happening in XR Nottingham, regional and national. We currently think that Covid-19 and HS2 will be the main topics. Then we’ll breakout into small groups for discussions and finally come back as a whole group for feedback.

Wed 18th 2pm https://zoom.us/j/389731783

Fri 20th 7pm   https://zoom.us/j/445836018

Sat 21st 2pm https://zoom.us/j/154835632

Zoom is an online video calling programme/app. It’s actually really easy to use and allows us to do some cool stuff with lots of us (up to 100 at time), without having to be together. 

Before the meeting, please try to set yourself up. If you have a mobile device, you could download and install the Zoom app. If you have a webcam on your computer you can also set up on there. https://zoom.us/download#client_4meeting – download the “Zoom client for Meetings” option.

You don’t need a personal Zoom account to access a zoom call (unless you want to use Zoom for setting up your own meetings) All you need to do is click on the links that we share for each meeting. If you would like to have a brief test run at connecting before the meeting, or want any advice you can email email hidden; JavaScript is required

HS2 – some links just for your interest about Hs2, it is not necessary to read these…
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/rethinkhs2/
http://stophs2.org/
https://rebellion.earth/?s=hs2
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/protecting-trees-and-woods/campaign-with-us/hs2-rail-link/
https://www.hs2.org.uk/

LOVE AND REBELLION,
XR NOTTINGHAM