On the go: The Fossil Free Greater Manchester campaign group plans to gather outside the Greater Manchester Pension Fund offices on Friday, urging the local authority scheme to address climate change.
Several local government pension schemes have chosen to pull out of fossil fuel investments.
On Tuesday, Swansea City and Council Pension Fund announced its intention to do so, with plans to cut its exposure by up to 50 per cent by 2022.
Fossil Free Greater Manchester argues that despite more and more investors moving away from fossil fuels, the circa £22bn GMPF is “failing to act”.
The group has announced that it will be campaigning with placards and banners outside the pension fund’s offices on July 19.
Dr John Broderick at the Tyndall Centre on Climate Change, University of Manchester, said “carbon budgets we developed for Greater Manchester are intended to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature objectives”.
He added: “To keep within this limit, 80 per cent of exploitable coal, oil and gas reserves have to remain under the ground. We need to tackle both the demand for fossil fuels and the supply, and divesting is an effective way to do this.”
Stuart Bowman, a member of Fossil Free Greater Manchester, said: "We need to act together to tackle climate change. GMPF is totally out of touch with the public mood and has no clear plan for urgently taking pensioners’ money out of fossil fuels.”
The GMPF has been approached for comment.
