Editorial: UC must divest from fossil fuels to prove environmental consciousness

The University of California Board of Regents announced the sale of $200 million worth of its investments in coal and oil sands companies on Sept. 9, continuing the board’s trend of following environmental conscience only when backed by business acumen.

Activists hailed the move as a positive step in restructuring the University’s finances toward a more environmentally conscious future. Yet, while both business and environmental concerns were cited as reasons for the decision, the UC’s Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher made it clear which reasoning took precedent.

He explained that a “slowing global demand, an increasingly unfavorable regulatory environment and a high threat of substitution pose insurmountable challenges to coal mining companies.”

While the sale is evidence the UC can process and respond to the environmental harms that most researchers agree humans’ use of fossil fuels creates, it also proves that progress at the UC is limited by its business interests. The University cannot continue to let its bottom line take precedent over its stated role as a leader in environmental protection.

Divesting from fossil fuels is a much more important step than simply protecting the University’s investments from the industry’s decline. Just last year, the regents decided against formal divestment from fossil fuel holdings and instead made a vague promise to keep environmental and social concerns in mind when making future investments.

The UC must prioritize environmental considerations around fossil fuel investment and continue to sell off its fossil fuel holdings.

Environmentalists have been pressuring the University for years to divest from fossil fuels, citing the general scientific consensus that their use as energy sources is a major contributor to global warming.

The news from the scientific end is grim. Human-driven climate change has been linked to environmental issues as far-flung as decreased food production, increased susceptibility to natural disasters and a rising sea level.

To be sure, the $200 million divestment is an improvement, but still only accounts for a minuscule 2 percent of the total $10 billion that the system has invested in various forms of energy, a significant portion of which funds dirty energy. The divestment also excludes the UC’s investments in oil drilling.

Hundreds of institutions, including the University of Hawaii and the city of San Francisco, have committed to selling off their fossil fuel holdings because of the issue’s critical state.

Ironically, this compelling need for change is a sentiment mirrored by the top level of the UC’s administration.

In a speech at the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference in July, UC President Janet Napolitano said protecting the planet for future generations is a “moral imperative” for colleges and universities.

But it takes an awful lot of logical back bending to understand how this statement on the morality of environmental protection squares with current University financial policy.

While there are conversations to be had about whether divestment works as an act of protest against fossil fuel use, the simple fact remains that the University does not have the moral standing to demand protection of the environment if a significant portion of its financial stability is derived from the very thing scientists say are causing the earth’s environmental collapse.

That disconnect reeks of political grandstanding, or worse, hypocrisy.

“Our goal is for UC to become a model for other institutions, and to help the state of California attain its own ambitious climate change goals,” Napolitano said at the conference.

The path to being that model has to start at the University’s checkbook.