This year’s divestment campaign highlights
2025 has been another exciting year for our campaign to end pension fund investments in climate-wrecking fossil fuels and to challenge the influence of oil and gas companies over our politics.
Read on for some of the highlights of the year.
Calling on pension funds to face climate risks and to stop funding fossil fuels
In January, a major new report warned of catastrophic threats to life on earth and to the global economy unless politicians and financial institutions stop underestimating the risk of climate breakdown and take immediate action to reduce emissions to zero as quickly as possible.
In March, we were delighted to join campaigners from groups including Divest Lothian, Extinction Rebellion Scotland, Discobedience Scotland and Protest in Harmony for a colourful musical and theatrical demonstration outside a huge pensions conference in Edinburgh which was attended by hundreds of pension fund representatives from across the UK.
We called on the pension fund delegates to take account of the report and to face climate risks by ending their investments in coal, oil and gas companies.
Divesting our council pensions from genocide and climate breakdown
We’ve been continuing to work with amazing groups in Scotland and across the UK to campaign for our councils to end their pension fund investments in fossil fuels.
In Glasgow, we’re very excited to be part of a new coalition with Unison Scotland, Extinction Rebellion Glasgow, Time to Divest Glasgow and other groups to call on Strathclyde Pension Fund to ‘Divest from Disaster’ by ending its investments in companies like Shell, Eni and TotalEnergies that are fuelling the climate emergency and the genocide in Gaza through their supply of oil to Israel.
Together with the wonderful Protest in Harmony Glasgow singers, the coalition groups held a ‘Divest from Disaster’ rallyoutside Glasgow City Chambers in June ahead of a key pension fund committee meeting to launch our campaign demands and a new Unison e-action to tell Strathclyde Pension Fund to stop investing in companies that are complicit in genocide and climate breakdown.
We also staged an ‘Unhappy Birthday’ party outside Strathclyde Pension Fund’s 50th anniversary celebrations at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in September to protest about the fund’s continued investments in companies that are complicit in the genocide of people in Palestine and in making the climate crisis worse.
In November, it was fantastic to join Unison members from across Scotland for the Unison pensions seminar to discuss the importance of ethical pension fund investments and next steps for the Strathclyde Pension Fund ‘Divest from Disaster’ campaign.
Over 1,000 people have contacted their councillors so far using Unison’s e-action. If you live in the Strathclyde Pension Fund region in the West of Scotland, you can email your councillors here.
There are exciting plans to extend the campaign to other council pension funds in Scotland in 2026 and please feel free to get in touch with us at sclark@foe.scot if you would like to get involved in the campaign.
Challenging fossil fuel influence over our politics
This year, we’ve also been working with campaigners across Scotland and the UK as part of the Fossil Free Parliament campaign to challenge the oil and gas industry’s influence over our politics.
We’ve seen more support from MPs for the Fossil Free Parliament pledge which asks them to help kick big polluters out of Parliament by personally rejecting donations and other benefits from the fossil fuel industry.
28 MPs have signed the pledge so far and Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) is the first MP in Scotland to sign. You can see a list of supportive MPs and ask your MP to sign the pledge here.
Fossil Free Parliament has also been doing great research into fossil fuel lobbying at Westminster since the General Election in July 2024 and discovered that UK Government Ministers have held over 500 meetings with fossil fuel representatives in their first year in power.
In October, we were delighted to be joined by investigative reporter Paul Dobson from The Ferret, Rose Whiffen and Juliet Swann from Transparency International UK and Lewis Coenen-Rowe from Fossil Free Parliament for a Friends of the Earth Scotland national meeting to share insights into how we can take action to end fossil fuel lobbying of our MPs and MSPs.
Power Station film screenings in Stirling and Polmont
In November and December, we were thrilled to work with divestment campaigners and groups including Friends of the Earth Falkirk, Stirling Methodist Church, Christian Climate Action and Polmont Community Hub to organise screenings in Stirling and Polmont of a fantastic new documentary called Power Station about how we can turn our homes and our streets into renewable power stations.
There was a great turn out at both events, and we were to be joined online by the directors and stars of the film, Hilary Powell and Daniel Edelstyn for amazing discussions after the film.
We’re currently planning another screening of the film for the new year in Glasgow with Unison Scotland and XR Glasgow, and we’ll be sharing more details soon.
If you’d like to get involved in campaigning for pension funds and other institutions to end their fossil fuel investments, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us at info@foe.scot to find out more and get involved.