Two key items this month.

1. Fossil fuel divestment

The Methodist Church in Britain has made a landmark decision this summer to disinvest if fossil fuel companies do not follow strategies consistent with meeting Paris Climate summit objectives of at most 2 degree global temperature rises. Full story is the last item below.

Pressure does work and the divestment movement is growing. Please follow up with your bank or pension fund by reading Share Action’s briefing and emailing lauren.peacock@shareaction.org.

You can also support the reinvest Scotland campaign.

2. Family planning and emissions reduction.

You may have seen the press coverage around the Family Planning Summit taking place this month. Extending voluntary access to family planning is now recognised as a major tool in combatting global poverty as well as empowering women. Less widely known is the positive impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by helping reduce fast-growing populations especially in sub-Saharan Africa. It should be stressed that this is about voluntary access not enforced family planning such as the former policy of the Chinese Government. There is a way to contribute via  our  annual carbon offset payments. Take a look at http://www.popoffsets.org/calculator.php.

Finally, if you want a sobering read, here is a recent Ney York magazine item. A  very thorough appreciation of the risky times that lie ahead

If you have not yet done so, please consider making the Geetotal commitment. If you have done so, now may be the time to do your annual CO2 assessment and offset).

Do follow wegeetees if you are a Twitter user and please retweet, see https://twitter.com/wegeetees

Leave the Oil in the Soil

The Methodist Central Scotland Circuit, at the instigation Stirling Methodist Church, has led the way in a ground-breaking decision taken at the June 2017 Methodist Church Annual Conference.
Way back in  November, Stirling Methodists tabled a notice of motion at their Circuit Meeting calling for the Methodist Church to divest from oil and other fossil fuel companies that threaten to accelerate, not reduce, climate change and instead focus investment on clean energy.
The Central Scotland Circuit and the Synod of the Methodist Church in Scotland backed the motion and submitted ‘Memorials’ to the Annual Conference. Several other Circuits and Synods across the country followed suit and  sent similar Memorials to Conference.. Taking investment funds out of oil and similar companies, known as ‘fossil fuel divestment’ became the subject of the greatest number of Memorials  to this year’s Annual Conference at the end of June.
The  official response was to  call for a long review. But  instead,  the Methodist Church has agreed  to take fossil fuel companies to task in 2018 and plan to remove investment from,’ ‘any company that  has not committed to a Low Carbon Business Plan in tune with the Paris proposal of a global temperature rise well below 2 degrees’.
Smaller groups like the Quakers have made similar decisions, as has the national Church of Sweden. The Methodists, prompted by the Stirling Church, have become the first large UK-wide Church to take this step.
Walter Attwood from the Stirling Methodist Church Green Team said ‘Oil has supported a large number of jobs in Scotland  and that will be on many  people’s minds, But the fact is that every £1million spent on clean energy brings more jobs than the same money spent on fossil fuels. This is a landmark decision by the Church. At local level  Falkirk Pension Fund manages public sector pension investments. It should now look to do something similar. If you would like to support the local Divest Forth Valley campaign you can contact me at wattwood675@gmail.com  Lets leave the oil in the soil’.