Glasgow University announced it will withdraw investments worth $29 million from companies that produce fossil fuels. The announcement comes after pressure from university students–more than 1,300 signed a petition requesting that Glasgow divest. It won’t happen all at once. “Over the coming years we will steadily reduce our investment in the fossil fuel extraction industry,” read part of the statement. The university expects the change to take a decade.
Glasgow becomes the first European university to promise divestiture from oil companies. A number of American universities–including Stanford University– have made similar commitments to withdraw from fossil fuel investments. All the universities engaged in this withdrawal will continue to provide research and development services–and engineering talent–to the big oil companies.
