A Climate Emergency motion was passed at Wednesday's full meeting of Salford City Council, which agreed to...
* Seek advice from experts to develop a 5 Year carbon budget and set a challenging target date of 2038 for carbon neutrality in Salford.
* Consider systematically the climate change impact of each area of the Council's activities
* Make recommendations and set an ambitious timescale for reducing these impacts;
* To assess the feasibility of requiring all risk and procurement assessments to include Carbon Emission Appraisals, including presenting alternative approaches which reduce emissions wherever possible.
* Report to full Council with the actions the Council needs to take to address this emergency.
* To task a Director level officer with responsibility for reducing as rapidly as possible, the carbon emissions resulting from the Council's activities.
* To equip all our staff with an awareness of the CO2 costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions through widespread Carbon Literacy
* To produce a report to the next Full Council on the level of investment in the fossil fuel industry that our pensions plan and other investments have.
While the Council is merely seeking 'to produce a report' about fossil fuel investments of its pension money, paid in by public sector employees, today, climate campaigners shouted it loud and clear about "the continued immoral and untenable investment of £2billion of 370,000 Greater Manchester pensioners' money in companies which are causing our climate and ecological crisis, as well as trying to cover it up".
Extinction Rebellion activists glued and locked themselves onto the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) HQ in Droylsden as part of a demonstration demanding that the Fund withdraw all investments from fossil fuel companies.
The GMPF is the largest and dirtiest pension fund in the UK with £2billion invested in fossil fuels, including £700million in Shell, BP, Exxon, Chevron and Total. The £2billion figure includes both direct investments in fossil fuel extraction companies and indirect investments in companies like banks that have holdings in fossil fuel companies.
"GMPF say they'll end their investments by 2050" said Extinction Rebellion Manchester member Neil Hancox "This is clearly far too late given we are in a
Climate Emergency but it is also clearly now immoral given the overwhelming scientific evidence of damage being caused by emissions from fossil fuels.
"GMPF also say they can influence fossil fuel companies to clean up their act" he added "Who are they kidding? These are the same companies who spend hundreds of millions a year funding climate change denial campaigns and various other public relations designed to obscure their complicity in climate ecocide."
Meanwhile, Fossil Free Greater Manchester member Mark Burton, who was also at the protest, said "Today, the GM Pension Fund excluded its members from what was supposed to have been their Annual General Meeting. The meeting was re-badged as an 'employers update' at the last minute in what appears to be a crude attempt to evade transparency and accountability."
Salford City Council has a new representative on the GM Pension Fund management panel, Councillor Michele Barnes. It will be interesting to see whether Salford Council, along with the other four councils around Greater Manchester that have declared a 'Climate Emergency', can finally force GM Pension Fund to divest from fossil fuels, rather than producing a 'report' for a future meeting.
* See also previous Salford Star article: Greater Manchester Councils Investing £1billion in Fracking Companies – click here
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