Fossil Fuel Divestment Summit Scheduled

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“Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness. Such investments will soon be stranded assets — a blot on the landscape and a blight on investment portfolios.”                                                                                                                             – UN Secretary-General, António Guterres

The California-Nevada Annual Conference Council on Finance and Administration is organizing a Summit on Fossil Fuel Divestment to be held at the Conference Center from Tuesday evening, March 25, through Wednesday afternoon, March 26. It will be geared specifically toward Conference financial officials and agencies, but presentations will be livestreamed for anyone who wants to know more about this issue. Presentations will be livestreamed on Tuesday, March 25 from 7 to 9 pm and on Wednesday, March 26 from 9 to noon.

This Summit is the outcome of a recommendation on fossil fuel divestment as a response to climate change that was passed in June 2024, at the California-Nevada Annual Conference Session. The purpose of the Summit is to: 1) to “uphold best practices for investment management,” 2) to “identify sound financial strategies to screen out fossil fuels from our conference investment portfolios,” and 3) to “make a report, including recommendations, to the 2025 Annual Conference.” 

Bishop Sandra Olewine will offer an initial address on Tuesday evening, other speakers include:

  • William Morris , from the California-Pacific Annual Conference, is a organizer with GreenFaith and chairs Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA). He will share his knowledge and experience working with GreenFaith on their People vs. Fossil Fuels campaign, and his first-hand experience of the impacts and responses to the LA fires. 
  • The Rev. Jim Antal, author of Climate Church, Climate World, will talk about why and how the United Church of Christ divested from fossil fuels and their process for doing so.
  • Jake Barnet from Wespath will talk about Wespath’s investment management practices and changes they have recently made to make it easier for pastors to transfer their pensions and for Annual Conferences and other UM institutions transfer their holdings into Wespath’s low-carbon funds.
  • Julia Frisbie, Executive Director of the Faith Foundation Northwest, will speak about how agencies can divest from fossil fuels to Wespath’s low-carbon Social Values Choice Funds and how the Faith Foundation Northwest and PNW Annual Conference did so.
  • Daniel Cohn, analyst for Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), will offer financial reasons for divesting from fossil fuels, discuss risks and returns, and will talk about how to move to fossil free funds beyond Wespath’s options. 

Topics to be covered include fossil fuel divestment as a moral and spiritual challenge, how other churches and annual conferences have divested from fossil fuels, how divestment from fossil fuels contributes to climate justice, comparative risks and returns of low carbon funds vs. investments in fossil fuel corporations,  financial reasons to divest from fossil fuels, and how to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in a fiscally and socially responsible way.

Register for livestreamed sessions via ZOOM here

For more information please contact Burke.owens@cnumc.org or KryziahT@calnevumc.org