Climate action: Sign letter calling on UW to divest from fossil fuels?

[Allison Kelly]

Dear colleagues,
FAUW's Climate Justice Working Group is again joining with our students to call on the University of Waterloo to divest from fossil fuels and invest in a climate safe future<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScqX7tbm-E8vijx2kB2G4M7HOhmIJGFQgCVAbrCn5qruuLwuA/viewform>, just as our colleagues have done at other top universities like UBC<https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ubc-divestment-vote-1.5371719> and Harvard<https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/2/5/faculty-vote-support-divestment/>. As part of this effort, both faculty and staff are invited to sign the letter<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScqX7tbm-E8vijx2kB2G4M7HOhmIJGFQgCVAbrCn5qruuLwuA/viewform> that will be delivered to the Board of Governors on October 27th. Please see below for more details. Thank you for considering this action, and if you have already signed on, thank you for your support.

Call for UW to Divest from Fossil Fuels

This is a message from the FAUW Climate Justice Working Group. FAUW working groups are member-driven initiatives that we support in the spirit of advancing open debate and promoting a diverse and inclusive university. The views expressed are those of the working group and do not necessarily reflect FAUW's views or positions.

The COVID crisis has driven the price of oil below zero, exposing the enormous financial risk of investing in fossil fuels. Meanwhile, climate breakdown is intensifying even faster than predicted, driven by increasing fossil fuel use. As the human health, ecological, socio-political, and economic fallout of the climate crisis grows, our students have called on faculty and staff to join them in bold climate action.

One key component of this is divesting from fossil fuels and reinvesting in a just, climate-safe future. But the University of Waterloo has thus far rejected this responsibility. The University has committed to align its investment decisions around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria and recently signed the Responsible Investment Charter for Canadian Universities. But to date these are primarily symbolic gestures: the university continues to invest tens of millions of dollars in fossil fuels.

If you want this to change, here's one quick but potentially very significant action faculty and staff can take: Sign a letter<http://bit.ly/UWDivestLetter> calling on the University of Waterloo to divest from fossil fuels and re-invest in a just, climate-safe future. The deadline for signing is October 20th.

Feel free to share this invitation widely with faculty and staff colleagues.

Do you know of students who want to sign a similar student-led statement? Please direct them to the student version<https://bit.ly/divestUW>.

Sincerely,

Allison C. Kelly, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo
Tel: 519-888-4567 x 33983   Fax: 519-746-8631
E-mail <mailto:%20allison.kelly at uwaterloo.ca>    Faculty webpage<https://uwaterloo.ca/psychology/people-profiles/allison-kelly>    Lab website<https://uwaterloo.ca/self-attitudes-lab/>    CMHRT website<https://uwaterloo.ca/mental-health-research-treatment/>

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