It's Deja Vu All Over Again in the Vermont Divestment Debate


I also made the observation that while engagement with fossil fuel companies has yielded little if any benefit, as Clean Yield has argued in more depth elsewhere, Vermont could still participate in engagement efforts by retaining token shares in selected companies. It seems ironic to me that the Treasurer is strongly asserting a preference for continued “constructive engagement,” when it doesn’t appear that Vermont has ever used its shares in any companies, let alone fossil fuel companies, to file a shareholder proposal. The fact remains that engagement has virtually no chance of succeeding at fossil fuel companies in the time frame in which it must.
Working closely with 350Vermont, we plan to continue to press the legislature and Governor Peter Shumlin’s administration to take a leadership position in the climate movement by embracing fossil fuel divestment from the state’s pension funds.