South Yorkshire Pension Authority is fuelling the climate crisis 

Here in South Yorkshire, nearly £500 million of your money is invested in fossil fuels by South Yorkshire Pension Authority (SYPA).  Nationally, £16 billion of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) is invested in the fossil fuel industry, according to new analysis by Platform and Friends of the Earth. 

Despite clear guidance that investors should not fund new oil and gas projects, local councils are still funding fossil fuel expansion, with over £8 billion of pensions invested in companies developing new oil and gas projects.

“Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero,” the Climate Change Committee warned this year, calling on industries to move away from high-carbon developments. Despite this, the total value of fossil fuel investments by local government pensions amounts to double the total market size of all renewable energy generation in the UK in 2022 . It also exactly matches the £16 billion investment the UK Government is looking to unlock through its Levelling Up Fund. 

With virtually all oil and gas companies set to expand their operations, campaigners are calling on pension funds to stop funding fossil fuels.

The research, conducted through Freedom of Information requests, reveals a variance in approach to fossil fuel investment across UK local government pensions. In London, where local leadership has taken sustained action on fossil fuel divestment, investment by local government pension funds is nearly half the national average*.

The analysis covers data taken from the 2021/22 financial year. A digital tool mapping investments onto fossil fuel assets and international operations will be live on Monday morning. 

Rob Noyes, Divestment Campaigner and Researcher at Platform, said: “Investments in dirty fossil fuels turn public sector savings into fossil fuel playthings, pumping billions of pounds through the pensions pipeline into climate-wrecking fossil fuels. This money is syphoned from workers’ wages and squandered, when it should be fuelling the green and just transition that we so desperately need. Polluters are profiting at pensioners’ expense. To catch-up on climate, councils must stop using pensions to prop up this deadly industry.”

Jamie Peters, climate coordinator at Friends of the Earth, said: “From insulating heat-leaking homes to facilitating mass public transport, councils are key to effective climate action, but this is undermined if local authority pension funds continue to fund fossil fuels. It’s time to ditch financially risky holdings in gas, coal and oil, and invest in accelerating the transformation to a carbon-free future.”

Sean Ashton, South Yorkshire Fossil Free, and a fund member said: “We continue to witness the catastrophic effects of climate change.  Wildfires swept the globe again this year and as we speak parts of Sheffield are flooding.  Despite pressure from the elected Councillors, the SYPA fund managers continue to drag their feet by investing local money in fossil fuels.  They are gambling with our futures.”