If we are serious about preventing catastrophic warming, we cannot dig any new coal mines, drill any new fields, or build any more pipelines. The new reality for power production, according to a recent study from academics at the University of Oxford, is that no new fossil fuel infrastructure can be constructed after 2017 unless other installations are closed before the end of their lifetime, dismantled, or modernised. Yet fossil fuel companies have shown they will stop at nothing to dig up and sell every last bit of coal, gas and oil.

People & Planet and the National Union of Students (NUS) announced today that over a third of universities in the UK have made fossil free commitments, as nine new UK universities have committed to never invest in fossil fuel companies. This brings the total to fifty four institutions which have taken action to exclude fossil fuel companies from their investment portfolios.

On the 2nd of December, Bristol Green Party Councillor Carla Denyer put forward a motion to Bristol University's ‘Court’ with the support of the UoB Fossil Free campaign. The motion both proposed that the University should ‘set a lead in tackling climate change’ by gradually phasing out its investments in companies which derive the majority of their revenue from fossil fuel extraction, and advises the Board to commit to completing this by the end of 2021. In 2015, Denyer submitted a similar motion to the Court, which was only 3% short of passing.