teachers

By Sandy Emerson - Unison, September 24, 2021

CalPERS has finally divested from three more thermal coal companies, as required by law. Following the passage of SB 185 (2015) CalPERS divested from all but three (out of 17) selected thermal coal mining companies: Exxaro, Adaro, and Banpu.  In an email to Fossil Free California, CalPERS’ Managing Investment Director Anne Simpson said that CalPERS no longer owns those companies: “As per the earlier board discussion, the three companies were retained for further engagement, which did not make progress hence the sale.”

The divestment from the remaining three thermal coal companies from the 2017 list shows the power of stakeholder pressure. CalPERS re-started engagements with Exxaro, Adaro, and Banpu in October, 2020, after Fossil Free California published its hard-hitting report “CalPERS Continues to Invest in Coal”. At the March 15, 2021 Investment Committee Meeting, Anne Simpson stated that the companies’ responses were being reviewed and that a decision would be announced toward the end of 2021.

We celebrate the fact that FFCA’s letter-writing campaign generated 626 individual letters to CalPERS, after we sent a series of detailed letters to CalPERS executive and investment staff and published the report. This long-awaited divestment success is thanks to the persistence and commitment of pension members, beneficiaries, and concerned Californians who sent letters, made public comments, and generally kept the pressure on for CalPERS to complete its mandated divestment.

By Elizabeth Perry - Work and Climate Change Report, September 20, 2021

The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative is spurring international cooperation to end new development of

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board announced on September 16 “industry-leading targets to reduce portfolio carbon emissions intensity by 45% by 2025 and two-thirds (67%) by 2030, compared to its 2019 baseline. These emission reduction targets cover all the Fund’s real assets, private natural resources, equity and corporate credit holdings across public and private markets, including external managers.” The press release continues: “By significantly growing our portfolio of green investments and working collaboratively with our portfolio companies to transform their businesses, we can make a positive impact by encouraging an inclusive transition that benefits our people, communities and portfolio companies.” Reaction by pension advocacy group Shift Action acknowledges that this is “the strongest climate commitment we’ve seen yet from a Canadian pension plan”, but called for OTPP to explain how it will eliminate its fossil fuel investments. The ShiftAction Backgrounder which accompanies the press release challenges the OTPP’s own estimate that approximately 3% of their assets ($6.6billion) are held in oil and gas assets, and compiles a list of company names and the extent of OTPP investments, including recent investments in 2020 and 2021.

If all of this sounds familiar, it may be because the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan released a Net Zero Emissions Commitment  in January 2021, which was criticized as greenwashing in “Breaking down Ontario Teachers’ 2050 net-zero emissions promise” (The National Observer , Feb. 4). The article stated: “…If OTPP is serious about adopting a globally significant climate-safe investment strategy, it needs a plan to exclude all new oil, gas and coal investments; a timeline for phasing out existing fossil fuel holdings; a commitment to decarbonize its portfolio by 2030; ambitious new targets for increasing investments in profitable climate solutions; and a requirement for owned companies to refrain from lobbying activities that undermine ambitious climate policy, set corporate timelines for reducing emissions, and link executive compensation to measurable climate goals.” It seems OTPP is moving in the right direction, but ever so slowly – similar to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), as explained in An Insecure Future: Canada’s biggest public pensions are still banking on fossil fuels  released by the Corporate Mapping Project in mid-August .

By Marcy Winograd - Common Dreams, September 7, 2021

As the climate crisis sent thousands fleeing wildfires in Northern California, CalSTRS, the nation's second largest public pension fund, postponed full divestment from fossil fuels for nearly 30 years.

Over objections from CTADivest, organizers within the powerhouse California Teachers Association, the retirement fund's investment committee voted unanimously September 1, 2021,to support a staff recommendation to adopt a net-zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) portfolio by 2050 or sooner. This translates into continued "engagement" or investment in Big Oil until the date the Paris Agreement set for countries to reach net-zero carbon emissions.

What is net-zero anyway? It's the point at which GHG's released by humans are "counterbalanced," in CalSTRS' words, by removing GHG's from the atmosphere, though no one is clear on how to remove these earth-warming gases through carbon capture and storage (CCS) or if it's even possible to inject them back into the ground without burning more fuels, poisoning drinking water or triggering earthquakes.

The CalSTRS vote came two months ahead of the next UN climate conference in Scotland, where the COP26 Coalition, made up of 350.org, CODEPNK and others, is expected to turn out thousands of protesters to demand the world's nations run, not walk, toward divestment from fossil fuels, as well as militarism, a key driver of the climate crisis.

The CalSTRS Board vote to continue investing in fossil fuels also came days after the California Democratic Party reaffirmed a 2015 resolution calling on the state's pension funds to divest from fossil fuels.

By Garrett Leahy - 48 Hills, August 29, 2021

More than 500 Bay Area high school students gathered outside the San Francisco Federal Building on 7^th Street Friday before marching down Market Street to City Hall, calling on the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the state’s pension fund for California public school teachers, to divest its investment holdings in fossil fuel companies.

They pointed out that that California’s wildfires demonstrate the need to reduce emissions.

“This climate strike has been going on for years, but we’re feeling the effects of climate change,” said Anya Draves, a senior at Berkeley High School and President and Co-Founder of the Berkeley High Zero Waste Club. “With the wildfires, the red skies, the smoke…we’re the ones who are going to be living on this earth for years to come we have the energy and the voices to fight back.”

Draves was not alone in her concern about the future of the planet as the brunt of the effects of climate change begin to unfold.

Aniya Butler, a Sophomore at Oakland Charter High School and Hip Hop and Climate Justice Coordinator with Youth vs Apocaylpse, a youth-led group calling on governments and corporations to take dramatic action against climate change, expressed the importance for student action to pressure CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuel companies, saying that following reports that effects of climate change now may be, in part, irreversible, young people must put pressure on corporations, hedge funds, and other wealthy and powerful entities to invest in sustainable industries.

“After the IPCC report came out, I feel like people are opening their eyes, like ‘okay’ this crisis is real and now we have to do something about it,” said Butler. “The youth are the future, and the climate crisis is something that will affect our future. We have to recognize that if we want to live in a future where we can thrive, where we can breathe, we are going to have to be the ones out here organizing actions, calling out the government, and calling on these corporations to divest from destruction and invest in our future.”

By Marcy Winograd - Common Dreams, August 26, 2021

The kids are mad as hell—and so are teachers who want their California teacher pension fund, CalSTRS, to join 1,000 other institutions collectively divesting $14.5 trillion from the fossil fuel industry that threatens climate catastrophe. The retirement fund divestment fight, led by retired teachers in Fossil Free CA and students from Youth vs Apocalypse and Earth Guardians, estimates CalSTRS' portfolio investments in fossil fuels at $16 billion, mostly in oil and gas delivery systems, but $6 billion in direct investments in oil behemoths, with $400 million in Exxon-Mobil, $350 million in Chevron, $250 million in BP and $108 million in Enbridge Inc. This is the same corporation sending attack dogs to maul water protectors protesting drilling at river crossings on indigenous land, where Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline will send sludgy tar sands through Minnesota. The estimated pollution from the pipeline is equivalent to 50 coal powered plants running for 50 years.

Fossil Free CA and other divestment advocates, including this author, warn that CalSTRS, the nation's second largest pension fund with a $310 billion dollar portfolio, just behind CalPERS' $444 billion in holdings, risks sticking its members, over 700-thousand active and retired California teachers, with stranded assets—unless the pension fund moves the money before it's too late, too late for the portfolio, too late for the planet.

CalSTRS's resistance to divestment from Big Oil comes at a financial cost to rank and file public school teachers. In 2019, the Corporate Knights, a Toronto-based research firm, published a study showing that had CalSTRS divested during the last decade the teacher retirement fund would have generated an additional $5.5 billion. Forbes reports that during that same decade, the energy sector of big fossil fuel companies, such as Exxon (ejected from the Dow in 2020), Chevron and BP, shrunk to the smallest investment sector in Standard and Poor's (S & P) index of the 500 largest US publicly traded companies. This year oil companies underperforming the index saw their credit ratings cut in half.

By Elizabeth Perry - Work and Climate Change Report, July 19, 2021

Education International, which represents 32.5 million educators in 178 countries, launched a “Teach for the Planet” campaign in April 2021, with a Manifesto for Quality Climate Change Education for All . The Canadian Teachers Federation has endorsed the campaign, raising the profile of climate change amongst Canadian educators. Earlier, in January 2020, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) held its first Climate Action Summit in response to youth global climate strikes, which resulted in the launch of OISE’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan  in February 2021. Although much of that Plan relates to the operation or governance of OISE as a teaching faculty within the University of Toronto, it also sets out goals and strategies to conduct an inventory of sustainability and environmental content in courses, expand sustainability and environmental content in curriculum, encourage research by faculty, and “consider sustainability expertise as an asset in the hiring of new staff and faculty.”

 “Are Canadian schools raising climate-literate citizens?” (Corporate Knights magazine, Summer 2021), states that at best, K–12 sustainability and climate change content in schools is “uneven,”, and provides an overview of grassroots initiatives amongst educators aiming to improve that situation. Ellen Field, an assistant professor in Lakehead University, is quoted: “We have a responsibility, especially for those who are educators, to be honest with young people about the reality of the urgency we are facing”. Field authored an important survey: Canada, Climate Change and Education: Opportunities for Public and Formal Education (2019), which among many findings, reports that teachers identified the three main barriers to more climate education: lack of time to include during class; lack of classroom resources; lack of professional knowledge.

Other examples of grassroots activism regarding climate education: Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), housed at York University in Toronto is a national non-profit that promotes environmental awareness and social responsibility for students and teachers, and hosts Resources for Rethinking, an online collection of lesson plans, books, videos related to environmental, social and economic issues. (The B.C. Teachers Federation also offers a collection of lesson plans ).

Climate Education Reform BC is a student-led coalition which published an Open Letter to the provincial education minister in April 2021, recommending 6 points, including revisions to climate change for K-12 curriculum, and support for teacher training.

The Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE) has operated since 2005, and recently adopted the K-12 Environmental Education Guidelines for Excellence, published by the North American Association for Environmental Education. ACEE also maintains an online resource centre of teaching materials related to climate change, including professional development materials such as the quarterly Green Teacher magazine .

By the CFA Peace and Justice Committee - California Faculty Association, April 11, 2021

WHEREAS, climate change, through rising sea levels, drought, heat waves, and increased wildfires is already negatively affecting human wellbeing, ecosystems and biodiversity; and WHEREAS, climate change is an issue of environmental justice, disproportionately impacting Indigenous communities, communities of color, and low income communities due to historical oppression, inequity of power, and lack of access to resources for prevention and relief; and

WHEREAS, the California Faculty Association has committed itself to fighting forces of institutional racism, promoting anti-racist and social justice principles and practices; and

WHEREAS, the International Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2018 that we have 12 years to make dramatic cuts in the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas and tar sands) if we are to keep warming to 1.5o C and avoid more catastrophic change; and

WHEREAS, to effectively address climate change most fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground, never to be used. This makes fossil fuel stocks a risky investment; and

WHEREAS, an analysis by Corporate Knights, found that the CalPERS pension fund lost 11.9 billion dollars over the last ten years by holding fossil fuel stocks; and

WHEREAS, divestment in specific segments or business operations by CalPERS is already standard practice and is specifically allowed by the California Constitution; and

WHEREAS, the fossil fuel industry is the single most powerful obstacle to addressing climate change; and

WHEREAS, an Oxford University study of divestment movements concerning South African apartheid, tobacco, and Darfur found that they had all succeeded in weakening the political power of their target, and had won government action; and

WHEREAS, globally over 170 colleges and universities have divested their endowments from fossil fuels including the University of California system, three CSU campuses, Stanford, and USC; and

WHEREAS, many California education unions have already passed resolutions calling for fossil fuel divestment from their state pensions, including the California Federation of Teachers, the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges, and many California Teacher Association chapters; and

WHEREAS, a fossil fuel company is defined here as a company on the Carbon Underground 200 list of the top 100 public coal companies and the top 100 public oil and gas companies globally; and

WHEREAS, divestment means selling directly held or commingled assets including fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the California Faculty Association strongly urges CalPERS to fully divest from fossil fuel companies, by selling their current investments and refraining from making any new investments in fossil fuel companies. A copy of this resolution shall be sent to CalPERS Board members.

By Elizabeth Perry - Work and Climate Change Report, February 22, 2021

With the goal to leverage their collective financial clout, Canadian university endowment funds and pension plans launched the University Network for Investor Engagement (UNIE) on February 18. Working through SHARE, Canada’s leading not-for-profit in responsible investment services, “The UNIE initiative will focus on key sectors where advocacy can make the biggest difference, including finance, transportation, energy and utilities, and manufacturing, focusing both on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating the transition to a low carbon economy.” Initial participants include Carleton University, Concordia University, McGill University, McMaster University, Mount Alison University, Université de Montreal, University of St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto Asset Management, University of Victoria, and York University.

This development follows on a number of statements and initiatives by Canadian pension administrators – most of which reflect this general strategy to prefer engagement as shareholders over divestment from fossil fuel holdings. Some examples:

In November 2020, the CEOs of Canada’s eight major pension administrators, with approximately $1.6 trillion in assets under management, issued a press release announcing their joint position statement, Companies and investors must put sustainability and inclusive growth at the centre of economic recovery. The text calls on companies to provide consistent and complete environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information, and continues: “For our part, we continue to strengthen our own ESG disclosure and integration practices, and allocate capital to investments best placed to deliver long-term sustainable value creation.” The signatories included: AIMCo, BCI, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, CPP Investments, HOOPP, OMERS, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and PSP Investments.

“Why are Ontario pensioners investing in future Alberta stranded assets?” (in Corporate Knights, December 16, 2020) describes investment by OP Trust (which holds the pension funds of Ontario civil servants, teachers and healthcare workers) in a natural gas electricity-generation plant in Alberta. The authors summarize the growing global realization that fossil fuel investments are financially risky and conclude, “The people at OPTrust have begun to recognize this. They’ve created multiple reports, with pretty graphs and rosy statements about supporting the Paris Agreement. But this statement rings out: “Emission reduction targets are not today’s objective.” Like many other organizations, they are unwilling to walk the talk.”

By Paul Prescod, Lara Skinner, and Zakia Elliot - Science for the People, October 16, 2020

Science for the People's second teach-in on a Worker's Green New Deal. This is the seventh, and final, of our series of virtual teach-ins on A People's Green New Deal. For more information visit this page.

Related magazine article: "Dignity Over Dumping: The Fight for Climate Justice and a Just Transition for Sanitation Workers" by Zakia Elliott, Alison Kenner, and Morgan Sarao. This panel is focused on how to broadly conceptualize and implement a "Worker's Green New Deal." We would like to bring in topics of environmental justice that include workplace issues.

These could include workplace exposure to chemical, biological and other hazards, lack of public and worker education on these topics, inadequate PPEs to protect workers and other such issues. We would like the discussion to address questions like: What would a Green New Deal look like that is centered on workers' rights and is carried out in collaboration with unions and other workers' organizations? How does support for union jobs and the growth of unions, especially in the public sector, lay a strong foundation for protecting our environment and communities?

By Jo Grady, et. al - University and College Union, July 16, 2020