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After nearly a decade of organizing by students, faculty, alumni, and community members, we have succeeded in pushing one of the world’s richest and most powerful universities to divest from the fossil fuel industry. For too long, Harvard has stood on the wrong side of history, lending legitimacy to the companies driving global warming and climate injustice by investing part of its $42 billion endowment in them.
The announcement came after 10 years of demonstrations, petitions, and elections by students, faculty, alumni, and community members all favoring fossil fuel divestment, including a historic protest at the 2019 Harvard-Yale football game, which involved hundreds of participants and represented the largest-ever protest for fossil fuel divestment from a university.
This is a huge win for fossil fuel divestment and the fight for climate justice, but there's still so much work to do. Harvard still needs to follow through on this commitment, sever its many ties with the fossil fuel industry, abandon the false notion of industry "engagement" around decarbonization, and address the gaping holes in its net-zero by 2050 pledge, among other steps. Furthermore, Harvard must divest from all extractive and exploitative industries, including the prison-industrial complex and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. We stand in solidarity with the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign and Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine and their demands for such divestment.
Our campaign will continue to call for transparency and public accountability around the university’s endowment, its reinvestment into just causes, and an end to the corrupting influence of the fossil fuel industry.
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