Thread by @DivestHarvard

BREAKING: After a decade of constant pressure by students, faculty, and alums, @HARVARD IS FINALLY DIVESTING FROM FOSSIL FUELS.

It’s a massive victory for our community, the climate movement, and the world — and a strike against the power of the fossil fuel industry. (THREAD)

1/ From the beginning, Harvard has sought to duck, dodge, and deny: claiming that fossil fuel stocks were necessary for profit, claiming that the endowment shouldn’t play a role in fighting climate change, and even claiming that fossil fuel companies are part of the solution.

2/ And the fossil fuel companies have loved this, constantly holding up Harvard’s embrace of the industry as a vindication of the industry’s unjust and unsustainable vision for the future.

3/ It took conversations and protests, meetings with administration, faculty/alumni votes, mass sit-ins and arrests, historic legal strategies, and storming football fields. But today, we can see proof that activism works, plain and simple.

4/ It shouldn’t have taken a decade for Harvard to catch up with climate reality. Harvard's intransigence represents a fundamental failure of transparency, governance, and accountability — failings that Harvard must resolve if it wants to rise to the challenges of the future.

5/ To be sure, this commitment is incomplete until it’s done. Harvard can’t afford to delay — the endowment must be decarbonized in full, & remaining investments must be eliminated as rapidly as possible. We’ll keep fighting to ensure that Harvard actually follows through.

6/ And there’s much more to come & to be done — we look forward to a new year of holding Harvard to account when it comes to transparency, just reinvestment, removing the fossil fuel industry's toxic footprint on campus research and programming, & more.

7/ To summarize: This announcement is a massive victory for activists and for the planet. Much more work remains, of course — and our movement will be here to make sure that for Harvard, it’s only a beginning when it comes to building a more just and stable future.