With the Fossil Free UCL divestment drive heating up, UCL management are attempting to pour cold water on the campaign. The group, along with Envi- ronment and Ethics officer Zak Mohran, has been pressuring the university to re- lease their latest investment portfolio. Despite Fossil Free contending that it is their legal obligation to do so, UCL are holding back the documents, citing “sound commercial reasons.”
However, suspicions abound that this is merely a delaying tactic to hide the fact that UCL are not faring so well finan- cially with their investments. Michael Arthur also rejected Fossil Free’s offer of a meeting, declining to give a reason for doing so.
Last year, Fossil Free attempted to ap- peal to UCL’s Ethical Investment Review Committee, a group that is supposed to evaluate ethically questionable invest- ments made by UCL, but Mohran has criticised it as remaining “at arm’s length, prodding a pointy stick.”
This is the latest stage of a persis- tent campaign by Fossil Free to force UCL to divest from energy companies (see CG45). Fossil Free member Pekka Piirainen told The Cheese Grater that “UCL’s claims of engaging with invest- ment reform appear to be nothing but empty talk to avoid the resulting public- ity.” With no signs of divestment in the near future, UCL’s reputation as a global (warming) university is growing faster than the world’s temperatures.