The Greater Manchester campaign
for fossil fuel divestment

IN RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE  EMERGENCY, WE ARE CALLING  UPON THE GREATER MANCHESTER PENSION FUND TO…

1. Make the fund fossil free within the next 2 years.
2. Immediately move all investments out of the most polluting fossil  fuels (coal, tar sands & fracking).
3. Develop a strategy to invest in local climate solutions in Greater Manchester.

We are part of a rapidly growing global alliance campaigning for divestment. We’re working with trade unions, scheme members and others to persuade the Greater Manchester Pension Fund to ditch its risky and polluting investments in fossil fuel companies.

Moorland fires, toxic air, extreme weather… the GMPF is funding climate chaos.

• Around £2,000,000,000 (£2 billion) is currently invested in polluting fossil fuel companies,
  such as Shell & BP*.
• These companies are risky investments for our planet and our pockets.
• Local governments have a responsibility to work for the public good.

Over 80% of the world’s coal, oil and gas reserves are unburnable if we want to halt climate change.

The hundreds of billions of pounds invested in energy projects every year need to be moved out of the fossil fuel industry and invested in clean energy instead.

Universities, pension funds, churches and other institutions are increasingly taking their investments out of coal, oil and gas.

We’ve joined this rapidly growing global alliance, and are campaigning to persuade the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) to divest the approximately £2 billion it has invested in fossil fuels.

The Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) is the largest and dirtiest in the  country. By following in the footsteps of hundreds of investors, including Norway and New York City, the GMPF must divest to…

• Do the right thing
   for a safe and healthy future for members and their families.
  
•  Reduce financial risk
   as the world moves away from fossil fuels.
  
• Protect our reputation
   Live up to Greater Manchester’s zero-carbon ambition.
• Accelerate the transition
  Invest in the clean energy of the future, not the fossil fuel dinosaurs of the past.
  

If you’d like to get involved with the campaign, why not come along to one of our meetings?  They take place at 7pm on the 2nd and 4th Monday of the month at the Green Fish Resource Centre (46-50 Oldham St, M4 1LE).  All welcome!  Or contact us.

Note

*  There were £1.4Bn direct investments in the biggest 200 coal, oil and gas companies at March 2018.  GMPF also has indirect investments in fossil fuels.  These were estimated at £516M in 2017.  Our own best estimate, based on analysis of the Fund’s March 2018 figures, is £508M which will reduce by an amount yet to be announced when GMPF moves some of these indirect pooled investments into a “low carbon fund”.