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Home›Students›Students File Legal Complaints Against University Fossil Fuel Investments

Students File Legal Complaints Against University Fossil Fuel Investments

By Sophia Jacob
April 9, 2022
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A coalition of Yale, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Vanderbilt students working with the nonprofit Climate Defense Project filed lawsuits in February to force their universities to end their financial relationships with the fossil fuel industry.

In the complaints, the students alleged that their schools violated the Uniform Laws for the Prudent Management of Institutional Funds, a state law that states that a nonprofit organization’s investments must align with its “purpose charity”.

The complaints, all filed with their attorneys general on the same day, argue that fossil fuel companies, by polluting the environment and engaging in public relations campaigns to undermine climate science, are in conflict with the missions of their universities.

The students also argued that fossil fuel investments are inherently risky, violating their institutions’ legal obligation to invest prudently. Climate scientists reported on Monday that new fossil fuel projects risk becoming “stranded assets” or being abandoned. Estimated losses from stranded fossil fuel infrastructure between 2015 and 2050 range between $1 trillion and $4 trillion, assuming the world takes action to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The student filings are part of a global wave of legal action to address the climate crisis. A recent report by the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics showed that worldwide the number of court cases related to climate change more than doubled between 2015 and 2021. Around 800 such cases were filed between 1986 and 2014, while over 1,000 have been brought. over the next six years, according to the report.

“We are seeing this unprecedented wave of litigation, where individuals are going to court to hold certain actors accountable for the damages they suffer and the damages they will suffer,” said Karen Sokol, eminent professor of law at the Loyola University of New Orleans. .

Sokol attributed the rise in climate cases to the growing harms of global warming — including severe weather disasters and the resulting destruction — as well as growing public awareness of the problem.

“Whenever harms and damages increase simultaneously with an increase in public awareness, people tend to seek redress in court,” Sokol told CNN. “That’s what we see.”

The five universities’ endowments total more than $150 billion, according to legal documents. CNN was unable to independently confirm how much or how much each university is investing in fossil fuels.

CNN contacted the respective attorney general’s offices, two of which — those in Massachusetts and Connecticut — confirmed they had received and reviewed the students’ complaints. The New Jersey attorney general’s office declined to comment, and the Tennessee and California offices did not respond.

None of the universities directly responded to the complaints, the students told CNN. In emails to CNN, representatives from Stanford, Princeton, Yale and MIT highlighted their universities’ recent efforts to mitigate climate change. Vanderbilt did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

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Each of the universities has also released detailed plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions on their campuses by a target date of 2050. Some are also pursuing net zero emissions in their investment portfolios, or have principles ethical investment rules making certain fossil fuel companies ineligible for investment.

Stanford seeks to achieve net-zero emissions in operations and investments by 2050, according to university communications manager Dee Mostofi, who also told CNN that the university’s investments “fully comply with all applicable laws. Governing Charities in California”. Mostofi also highlighted the university’s investments in clean energy and transportation.

For Stanford students, promises and policies are not enough.

“‘Net-zero’ means that Stanford could still invest in fossil fuels and just offset it in ways that aren’t really good enough,” said Miriam Wallstrom, a Stanford junior and Fossil Free Stanford organizer. “As a member of the generation that both has to do the most to tackle the climate crisis and will also suffer the most in terms of severe weather events, it is terrifying and frustrating that the institution I am going to will not has not divested, especially when many peer institutions have done so.”

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Carbon offsetting is the practice of using renewable energy, planting trees, or supporting other forms of conservation in an effort to offset fossil fuel emissions. But many experts have raised doubts about the effectiveness of such programs, which could allow people, countries, companies or organizations to continue emitting carbon dioxide unabated.
Other institutions of higher education that have moved away from fossil fuels or have announced their intention to do so include Brown University, Boston University, Georgetown University and Middlebury College. Harvard University and Cornell University also pledged to divest soon after their students filed legal complaints with the help of lawyers from the Climate Defense Project, the same organization that assists the current climate defense coalition. students.

Students also pointed out that their universities may have conflicts of interest preventing them from responding fairly to the demands of the student climate.

Vanderbilt students say University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier’s ties to the fossil fuel industry are a conflict of interest. Diermeier has previously advised companies such as Shell, ExxonMobil and BP, among others, according to his resume, which is hosted by a Vanderbilt web address. The students filed a complaint with the University, and the committee investigating conflicts of interest deemed it “without merit”, according to a press release from the university. The Chancellor did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Yale students also note that four trustees of Yale Corporation — the charitable entity that manages the school’s roughly $42 billion endowment — have ties to the fossil fuel industry. Three current or former directors serve or recently served on the boards of oil and gas companies, while one was the CEO of a major energy company.

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Neither the Yale Corporation nor the Yale Investor Responsibility Advisory Committee responded to CNN’s requests for comment.

“The central part of our campaign has been to say that investing in fossil fuels is immoral,” said Molly Weiner, a freshman at Yale and an organizer for Yale’s Endowment Justice Coalition. “But the moral argument will only get us so far given that the people who make these investment decisions personally benefit.”

Weiner also pointed to a disconnect between where Yale spends research funds and how it allocates some of its endowment.

“Yale invests a lot of money in climate research,” said Weiner, an environmental studies student. “But that’s rendered moot by the fact that the university has $800 million in the fossil fuel industry. They basically cancel each other out.”

Ted Hamilton, co-founder of the Climate Defense Project, hopes Yale and other universities will decide to divest of their own accord. Alternatively, he said, state attorneys general could issue enforcement orders requiring universities to stop investing in the fossil fuel industry. Such an action would be unprecedented.

Globally, climate disputes remain largely unresolved as many cases continue to go through the court system. Nearly two dozen lawsuits in the United States, all pending in court, seek damages from fossil fuel companies, claiming the companies lied to the public by misrepresenting or denying the harmful effects of fossil fuels, according to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Some cases have been successful.

A lawsuit led to a German court ruling forcing the government to create more ambitious greenhouse gas emission reductions.
A case in the Netherlands has created a new “duty of care” for the government to protect the public from climate change. And more recently, a Dutch court issued a groundbreaking ruling requiring Shell to cut its global emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels.

“There is this momentum,” Sokol said, speaking of successful international cases. “Courts are carving out a role for themselves in our new climate reality.”

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