City Council endorsement of Fossil Free Divest Harvard

ORIGINAL ORDER

The science is clear that anthropogenic climate change is a dangerous and imminent reality, with the latest IPCC report stating that we have only 11 years until global warming exceeds a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase above pre-industrial levels, which will bring severe consequences for our planet and for all of our communities; and Sea-level rise due to climate change is predicted to range from 11.4in to 79in in Massachusetts by 2100, which will induce harmful flooding, and the state continues to see new temperature and weather extremes.

These increasingly palpable effects of climate change pose a threat to the lives, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure of the Cambridge community; and Climate change not only poses an existential threat to 21st-century life but also perpetuates injustice on a global scale, disproportionately impacting communities of color and poor communities here in Massachusetts and around the world; and The City of Cambridge has shown a commitment to leadership on climate action, as evident by forming a Getting to Net Zero Task Force in 2013 and being on target to achieve a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from municipal operations by 2020; now therefore be it That the City of Cambridge puts its full support behind the Fossil Free Divest Harvard campaign in its movement to divest Harvard’s nearly $40 billion endowment from the fossil fuel industry; and be it further That the City Council go on record endorsing the demands that Fossil Free Divest Harvard has put forward for Harvard Heat Week 2019: full disclosure of Harvard’s endowment holdings in the fossil fuel industry to create transparency; a commitment by Harvard for total divestment of the endowment from the fossil fuel industry to be made by Earth Day of 2020; the reinvestment of the endowment into environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, and community-managed funds; and the cessation of Harvard’s unsustainable and unethical international farmland acquisitions, under the guidance and supervision of affected communities; and be it further That the City Council call on Harvard University to uphold the principles of its Veritas motto, to take responsibility as an institution of higher education and as an institution with considerable societal influence, and to respond to the calls of the Harvard campus and broader Cambridge communities to show leadership on climate action by making its financial principles align with its ethical values through divestment; and be it further That the City Clerk be and hereby is requested to forward suitably engrossed copies of this resolution to Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow and Fossil Free Divest Harvard on behalf of the entire City Council.