A Green councillor from Brighton has called on East Sussex County Council to end its investment in fossil fuels.
Elaine Hills, who represents Hanover and Elm Grove ward, told county councillors that Brighton and Hove City Council has called for an end to fossil fuel investments three times since 2017.
The most recent request was made about six weeks ago when councillors backed signing up for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Councillor Hills spoke out this week because East Sussex County Council administers pensions for Brighton and Hove City Council staff and several other councils and public bodies.
At a meeting of the full council in Lewes yesterday (Tuesday 22 March), she said that Brighton and Hove City Council staff paid 32 per cent of the fund’s contributions.
But the council had no political representatives on the pension investment committee and no means of holding the fund to account, she said.
In a written question, Councillor Hills said that Hastings Borough Council and Lewes District Council had asked the pension fund to divest from fossil fuels.
So had Lewes, Peacehaven and Bexhill town councils, she said, as well as the trade union Unison, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas, and the Conservative MP for Lewes, Maria Caulfield.
About 1,500 organisations worldwide have divested $39 trillion from fossil fuels, including six UK pension funds, she added.
As just 0.5 per cent of the fund’s investment was in fossil fuels, Councillor Hills said, a public commitment to divest posed “no financial risk”.
She said: “By making such a public commitment, the fund would be sending a powerful signal to policymakers to get serious about tackling the climate emergency which requires the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels.
“Given the above facts, why does the East Sussex Pension Fund continue to reject the calls for it to make a public commitment to fully divest from fossil fuels over the next five years?”
Conservative councillor Gerard Fox, who chairs the Pensions Committee, said that the fund’s governance was not political.
He said: “There is no employer represented on the fund’s investment committee, not even East Sussex.
“The board of the fund does have employer representatives – and Brighton and Hove City Council has a seat.
“Brighton and Hove City Council do not represent their scheme members. Their scheme members’ interests are looked after by the quasi trustees of the fund on the committee.”
Councillor Fox said that East Sussex councillors formed the committee as it was the administrative authority, one of 89 in England.
He added: “I really don’t see why Brighton and Hove, one of 130 employers on the fund, should sit on the investment committee when no other employer does.”
In response to the written question, Councillor Fox said that the fund’s Statement of Responsible Investment Principles was against “blanket divestment” of any sector as it would not be “effective stewardship” for its pensioners.
Councillor Fox added: “To remove a fossil fuel company from the fund does not change real-world carbon emissions as it does not reduce the global demand for those fossil fuels.
“It instead moves the problem elsewhere – either to an investor who is less climate-conscious or to increase the market share of national oil companies who are less transparent about their activities and have higher carbon footprints per unit of fuel on average than listed fossil fuel companies.”
He said that the pension fund believed that it had a more significant influence on companies with high carbon emissions as a shareholder.
Outside County Hall, in Lewes, on Tuesday, campaigners from Divest East Sussex held a “mock marriage” between East Sussex County Council and fossil fuels.
Brighton and Hove City Council officials were previously asked to draw up a report exploring whether the council could pull out of the East Sussex scheme.
The report was due to be presented to the Policy and Resources Committee meeting scheduled for Thursday 24 March.
It is the duty of the pension fund managers to get the best return they are able by legal investments.
Its not their job to follow political doctrine.
If they fail in their job they are liable to legal sanctions.
If this councillor want these investments banned she needs to get the law changed.