Mining companies go bananas about divestment - ANU

The divestment in fossil fuels is on worldwide, and even Abbott can't stop it here in Australia. Despite the gov's insane ideology on global warming, entities are divesting from fossil fuels themselves. 

The latest is the Australian National University in Canberra. This means quite a bit on it's own, but because the ANU is so respected and influential it will have wider implications.

The mining companies aren't happy, and have launched an extraordinary attack on the university over it's divestment in dirty energy. Strange that they would want to stop people investing in what they themselves choose to.

This week, the ANU announced it would join the ranks of Stanford University and 12 other international education leaders and divest its sizeable endowment from seven companies with questionable environmental credentials. 

ANU is amongst the world's leading universities. It has long been at the forefront of Australia's research into climate change and what to do about it. Its student population is concerned with climate change, and 82 per cent of ANU students support a divestment campaign being run by fellow student Tom Swann. 

With that in mind, the divestment move is entirely unsurprising. As its vice-chancellor, Ian Young, told the ABC's Lateline, "we need to be able to put our hand on our heart when we talk to our students, and to our alumni, and to our researchers, and be able to say that we're confident that the sort of companies we're investing in are consistent with the broad themes that drive this university." 

The decision to divest is a personal or institutional one, but when a university of the pedigree of ANU commits to divestment it has broader consequences. And since the university's decision was announced, the political knives have been out. 

The Whitehaven Coal chief called divestment "green imperialism at its worst." The Minerals Council of Australia's Greg Evans accused ANU of engaging in an "anti-mining campaign, an anti-business campaign." The Australian Financial Review used its editorial to compare ANU's divestment commitment unfavourably to banning the burqa, dismissing the move as poorly conceived "whatever the effects of carbon dioxide ­emissions on climate," as though that were some minor consideration. 

What's going on? Since when did the representatives of big business have a problem with investors choosing how to invest their own money? 

The underlying fear triggering the outrage of hysterical hyperbole is, at its heart, a simple one. ANU's decision to divest shows that, while the Coalition tries to wind the clock back on climate action at a government level, thought leaders in the community are getting on with acting all by themselves. Read more