Copy
View this email in your browser

In this newsletter:

  • 113 Organizations demand that TIAA divest, expose "2050 Net Zero" hypocrisy
  • After 10-year Campaign Harvard Divests
  • TIAA-Divest National Meeting 10/19 at 7pm -- Sign Up!

TIAA-Divest! and Stop Land Grabs Coalition team up to urge TIAA to take responsible investing seriously

113 Groups Push TIAA to Divest from Fossil Fuels & Stop Land Grabs, Calling TIAA’s Net Zero by 2050 Plan “Wildly Inadequate” for the Climate Crisis

In the June edition of TIAA-Divest!'s newsletter, we called your attention to TIAA's announcement that the company would commit to "Net Zero by 2050". In their statement TIAA quoted executives as saying that the climate emergency "is an investment risk that we must manage over time" (hence the 30 year timeline) and claiming that "Nature-based solutions" would help to achieve their net-zero target.

"Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,  this is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”

-Greta Thunberg, Youth4Climate summit, Sept. 2021, Milan, Italy

Over the summer, TIAA-Divest! team members worked with the Stop Land Grabs Coalition, to analyze TIAA's statement and to try to anticipate the details of TIAA's plan.  Two things were immediately obvious. First, in planning for 2050, TIAA refuses to recognize the role its investments play in accelerating the climate crisis and the resulting mass species extinction, climate-induced migration and eventual widespread famine. A serious plan for addressing carbon emissions would have a deadline of 2030, our last chance according to the IPCC.  Second, we fully expect that TIAA will try to leverage their 2 million+ acres of land holdings as offsets in order to achieve a mythical "net-zero". Offsets are the latest trend in greenwash, giving polluters a magic way out of facing accountability, all the more worrisome as TIAA is likely to convert wild lands into industrial monocultures and claim that the damage caused by their fossil fuel investments was somehow nullified.

We're expecting that TIAA will release a more detailed version of their plan this autumn, so TIAA-Divest! and Stop Land Grabs decided to get proactive. We drafted a detailed letter to TIAA's new CEO, Thasunda Brown Duckett and circulated it to climate justice, farm and food justice, human rights and environmental organizations. By the time we sent our letter, 113 groups had endorsed and signed onto our key demands:
  1. Enact an immediate moratorium on all new direct investments in fossil fuels and all highly-emissive investments.
  2. Divest from the Cricket Valley fracked gas power plant.
  3. Enact an immediate moratorium on all new investments in farmland, timberland, and industrial agriculture production.
  4. Commit to full transparency.
  5. Work with a panel of independent scientific and human rights experts and
  6. community stakeholders to assess and report on TIAA’s climate and social impacts.
  7. Divest from all current fossil-fuel investments and activities by 2025.
TIAA-Divest! is working with some of our 113 signing partners to develop a consolidated petition that both TIAA participants and non-participants can sign, allowing you to add your voice to those demanding that TIAA finally divests from climate destruction. We'll let you know as soon as it's online.
TIAA/Nuveen kicked off a new disinformation campaign aimed at countering the flood of divestment resolutions passed by SUNY institutions. We deconstructed TIAA's claims, and they are 99.44% pure greenwash! Please share this graphic on your social media accounts!
Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Would you like your own personal subscription? Click Here!


Divestment Logjams Broken!


For those of us focused on fossil fuel divestment, this summer's big news was Harvard University's announcement that it would finally divest it's endowment.  Harvard's endowment is over $42 billion and the university has long resisted calls from faculty and students to stop supporting the petroleum industry. Harvard's President tried to soft peddle the news, but there is no doubt that this dramatic turn of events leaves zero excuses for financial institutions to retain their fossil fuel investments. Not only is it bad business, but it's morally unconscionable.
The fossil fuel divestment movement is taking off, and leading retirement funds from New York City's pension to the state of Maine declaring that they will no longer support the industry that threatens our very existence.  An example of how a pension on the scale of TIAA can do the right thing, have a look at how the Quebec Pension Plan intends to address the climate crisis. Besides promising to divest from oil producers and pipelines, QDPQ will:
  • Cut portfolio carbon emissions intensity by 60% below 2017 levels by 2030
  • Increase investments in climate solutions from $36 billion in 2020 to $54 billion in 2025
  • Provide $10 billion in financing to help decarbonize high-carbon sectors such as steel, transportation and agriculture
TIAA/Nuveen is running out of excuses. Together, we can make them treat responsible investing seriously.

October 19th: TIAA-Divest National Zoom Meeting: Hold the date!


Join our 10/19 national meeting (7-8 PM EDT), in which we will share our successes to date, our plans for escalating action, and the many ways you can become involved to stop TIAA from using your retirement dollars to fuel the climate crisis.  Our speakers will include Bill McKibben on why the TIAA Campaign is so important, and Ilana Cohen, a Harvard student who helped spearhead the fossil fuel divestment campaign on the power of persistence.  Sign up now and share this invitation with your colleagues!
*** CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ***


 
Facebook
Website
Copyright © 2021 TIAA-Divest! from Climate Destruction, All rights reserved.


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp