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Article

30 Jun 2015

Author:
Justin Worland, Time (USA)

Health experts call for fossil fuel divestment citing public health impacts of climate change

“Leading Health Experts Call For Fossil Fuel Divestment to Avert Climate Change”, 25 Jun 2015

[Leading Health Experts] called on charities to divest from fossil fuel companies in an open letter Thursday. The letter…argues that climate change poses a dire risk to public health and that fossil fuel companies are unlikely to take action to reduce carbon emissions without prodding…“Divestment rests on the premise that it is wrong to profit from an industry whose core business threatens human and planetary health,” the health experts wrote…Recent research has outlined a variety of public health issues caused by climate change, from heath stroke deaths to increased asthma rates…The open letter alluded to those impacts and suggested that divestment would be the best way for global charities to address them…“Our primary concern is that a decision not to divest will continue to bolster the social licence of an industry that has indicated no intention of taking meaningful action,” researchers wrote…The letter specifically calls on the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation two nonprofits that are leading contributors to global health causes, to divest their multi-billion endowments from fossil fuel companies. Together the companies control total endowments worth more than $70 billion…