California has some of the nation’s leading climate policies, with hard deadlines to slash greenhouse gas emissions, switch to zero-emission cars and trucks and get 100% of its electricity from carbon-free sources. But so far, its leaders have lagged behind other states, like Maine and New York, in using another important tool — the financial power of its massive public pension funds — to hasten the nation’s independence from fossil fuels.
CalPERS and CalSTRS are the nation’s two largest public pension funds and have nearly $15 billion collectively invested in some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies. That includes companies owned by the Chinese government, Saudi Arabia and multinational corporations such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell that are posting record profits as the planet increasingly burns, floods and bakes from the impacts of climate change and communities suffer.
Helping to fund the destruction of our environment is insanity; profiting from it makes us complicit. We urge California lawmakers to pass SB 252, legislation by Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) requiring CalPERS and CalSTRS to shed their investments in the largest fossil fuel companies by 2031, and stop renewing or adding to existing investments starting next year.
