Was 2021 the tipping point for fossil fuel divestment? What do Harvard University, the Ford Foundation, and French bank La Banque Postale have in common? In 2021, all announced that they would divest from fossil fuels. Now a decade old, those involved in its efforts say 2021 has been a particular successful year, with more schools—along with pension funds, large philanthropies and others—divesting and moving the money into equitable climate solutions. “This year was a turning point year in that really the divest-invest movement is winning. In 2021, major commitments came from Harvard University, which, after years of pressure from student activists, announced it will divest its $53 billion endowment from oil, gas, and coal; Banque Postale, which has $894 billion in assets and committed to divest from all oil and gas companies by 2030; and the Ford Foundation, with $17 billion in assets. For many divest-invest activists, the campaign that started as a moral argument, but increasingly, Coleman says, it’s turned into a financial case as well. The push for institutions to take their money out of fossil fuels is even more crucial in light of the need to be net zero emissions by 2050.
