The leader of one of the country’s top universities rejected calls to divest from fossil fuels despite calls from campus groups.
Mark Schlissel, president of the University of Michigan, wrote that his university would not participate in a nationwide divestment movement. Schlissel said fossil fuels are different than the areas where the university previously decided to divest, which were tobacco companies and in South Africa during apartheid.
“Fossil fuels enable us to operate the university, to conduct research and to provide patient care. At this moment, there is no viable alternative to fossil fuels at the necessary scale. In addition, most of the same companies that extract or use fossil fuels are also investing heavily in a transition to natural gas or renewables, in response to market forces and regulatory activity,” Schlissel wrote in a Dec. 4 blog.
It’s another blow to the campaign to get universities to divest in fossil fuels. Schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the City University of New York and Tulane University have rejected divesting in fossil fuels.
Divestment campaigns typically take place on college campuses, with activists aiming to get their schools to withdraw their investments in the fossil fuel industry, which many scientists blame for driving manmade climate change. The campaigns are meant to send a message that investing in oil and coal companies is a risky move.
However, academics and industry observers have said divestment campaigns are ineffective and can actually hurt what the activists are trying to do, which is o decarbonize the economy. Divestment rarely hurts oil companies and can remove climate-conscious investors from shareholders meetings.
Schlissel called divesting in fossil fuels mostly symbolic.
“I do not believe that a persuasive argument has been made that divestment by the U-M will speed up the necessary transition from coal to renewable or less polluting sources of energy.”
Democratic presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Sen. Bernie Sanders have supported the divestment movement. Many of the other candidates running for the nation’s top office have been silent on the issue.
