Calling on pension funds to face climate risks

Our pension funds are supposed to be protecting our future, so why are the people running our pensions continuing to invest in the fossil fuel companies that are driving climate breakdown and risking all our futures?   

Last week, we joined climate campaigners from groups including Divest Lothian, Extinction Rebellion Scotland and Protest in Harmony outside a huge pensions conference in Edinburgh to call on pension fund representatives to stop underestimating climate change risks and to remove their investments from planet-wrecking fossil fuel companies.  

This annual Pension Investment conference brings over 800 delegates to Edinburgh from across the UK pension investment industry, including from the Strathclyde, Lothian, North East of Scotland, Scottish Borders and Fife Council Pension Funds along with representatives from the Nest pension scheme.  

Attracting the attention of delegates with fantastic singing by Protest in Harmony and a ‘Big Oil Funk’ routine by discobedience dancers, the campaigners portrayed a pension fund leader with his head in the sand being persuaded by actuaries and climate scientists to look up and “Face the Climate Risks”. 

Pensions are underestimating climate risk 

With 2024 confirmed as the hottest year on record and extreme weather devastating lives around the world, it has never been more urgent for pension funds to stop gambling with our futures by reconsidering the flawed climate risk assessments they currently use and by ending their fossil fuel investments.  

UK pension funds are investing around £88 billion from our savings in some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel polluters like BP and Shell – companies that are abandoning their renewable projects and doubling down on their core business: the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.  

Not only is investing in fossil fuels a disaster for communities and the planet, but it will also create financial chaos.  

A recent ‘Planetary Solvency’ report by The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in collaboration with climate scientists has found that pension fund are vastly underestimating the catastrophic threats to communities and the economy posed by climate change and that the global economy could be cut in half due to the impacts of climate breakdown.  

How our pensions can protect our futures 

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.  

Our pensions have the potential to be a key part of the climate solution. 

By ending their fossil fuel investments and instead funding real climate solutions, such as wind and solar power, social housing and warm homes, pension funds can benefit communities here in Scotland and around the world and ensure a better future for everyone. 

How you can take action for fossil-free pensions 

You can put pressure on your own pension fund by moving your money to their ethical fossil-free options and by contacting them to ask them to stop investing in fossil fuels. 

If you’re a member of the Nest pension scheme, you can move your savings away from fossil fuel companies by switching to the Nest Ethical Fund in a few simple steps and by calling on Nest to divest its other funds from fossil fuels. You can find out more here.   

Together, we can demand that our pension funds stop funding climate chaos and instead invest in a liveable planet for all and a future worth having.