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MORE than 130 MPs have signed a cross-party letter to their pension fund urging it to stop “funding climate disaster” with its investments in fossil fuel firms.
Co-ordinated by Labour MP Zarah Sultana, the letter sent today urges parliamentarians to “get their own house in order” as Britain hosts the global climate summit Cop26 in Glasgow, now in its second week.
Ms Sultana accused the parliamentary contributory pension fund (PCPF), which automatically includes all MPs, of funding climate disaster.
The letter acknowledges that the fund’s trustees have reduced investments in fossil fuel firms but urges them to go one step further and divest from the industry in its “entirety, as soon as possible.”
“Without this, our pensions are contributing to temperature rising above 1.5°C,” it reads.
“If this limit is exceeded, by the time younger members are old enough to draw our pensions, a full-blown climate catastrophe will have struck, with ice caps melted, food systems collapsed and deadly extreme weather becoming the norm.”
The pension fund has so far invested £36 million into wind and solar energy and cut funding to oil giant BP by 62 per cent due to pressure from former and current MPs, according to campaign group Divest Parliament.
A separate pledge by the group has received the backing of 360 former and current MPs.
The letter, signed by more than half of Labour MPs, continues: “It is recognised that as elected representatives, we have a responsibility to show leadership on the climate emergency and ensure that our pensions are not funding climate disaster.
“Let us get our house in order by aligning our pension investments with a green and prosperous zero-carbon future that helps to contain global heating to below 1.5°C.”