Concern over Church of England pension board fossil fuel industry links
Key members of the Church of England’s pensions board have strong links to the fossil fuel industry, research has shown, amid concerns over the organisation’s plans to end its investments in high-carbon companies.
Analysis by DeSmog, the environmental investigation group, has found three prominent members of the pensions board of the Church Commissioners, the body that looks after Church of England investments, with former or current roles in energy companies, while other major figures have indirect links.
The Church of England began to cut ties to coal and other heavily polluting industries in 2015, then pledged in 2018 to divest by 2023 from high-carbon companies that were “not aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement”. But as the deadline approaches, the organisation has said it is still “engaging” with key oil and gas interests rather than cancelling all of its holdings.
Chris Manktelow, of the Young Christians Climate Network, said this was not good enough. “I understand why the church wants to engage, but I don’t think the strategy of engagement is working,” he told the Guardian. “The church should be moving quickly and showing moral leadership, and is just not going fast enough. We are not happy with this response [to the calls to divest].”
There are also questions over the church’s approach to oil and gas companies that claim they are on a trajectory to net zero emissions. Some fossil fuel companies – including BP, Shell and ExxonMobil – have set out strategies to reach net zero, but many experts regard these plans as flawed. ExxonMobil, for example, is only planning to reduce the emissions from its operations, rather than those that arise from burning the oil and gas it produces.
However, the Church
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