Re-Examining Municipal Pension Plan Divestment

Whereas since 2016, when the UBCM report, Primer on Fossil Fuel Divestment and the Municipal Pension Plan noted that Divestment may compromise our investment strategy, increase risks and costs, and negatively affect our clients investment returns, there have been major shifts in global climate science and investment strategies. The October 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC report verified that global warming is accelerating, with a window of little more than a decade to drastically reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions to avert catastrophic climate change impacts. Since 2016, divestment has accelerated. In 2014, global funds committed to fossil fuel divestment was 52 billion. In 2018: 8 trillion. In 2019: 11 trillion, including pension funds such as Caisse, Quebec, Quebecs equivalent to B.C.s pension fund manager, whose CEO stated: There are going to be stranded assets associated with climate changewe think its good risk management to, over time, exit those; And whereas evidence is growing that fossil fuel-free funds are outperforming fossil fuel investments. The 2019 return on the BC Government Employees Unions fossil fuel-free investments, for example, was 21.7 percent: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM reexamine and update its 2016 Primer on Fossil Fuel Divestment and the Municipal Pension Plan report in light of globally changing investment and divestment strategies and inform BC Investment Management Corporation, as the provider of investment management services for BCs Municipal Pension Plan, of the concerns of the UBCM regarding the growing financial risks related to investing in fossil fuels and its support for a plan, built on leading practices related to fossil fuel-free investment portfolios, to fully divest Municipal Pension Plan funds from fossil fuels.