Time to divest from fossil fuels

The Canadian Medical Association will divest its holdings in fossil-fuel companies, a move doctors hope will send a powerful symbolic message that climate change is an urgent health concern.

“Given the health impacts of fossil fuels, we have to take a stand,” Courtney Howard, a board member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and a physician practising in Yellowknife, said in addressing the CMA’s general council meeting on Tuesday.

She likened the move to earlier decisions by the organization to divest out of tobacco companies.

The move by the CMA is part of an accelerating trend of high-profile institutions such as universities and faith-based organizations to take a stand on climate change by pulling their investments out of oil and gas companies.

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Canada’s doctors are following the lead of their counterparts in Britain and Australia, whose national associations have both divested from fossil fuels.

At least 30 campuses in Canada have divestment campaigns to move out of fossil-fuel holdings. No university has announced plans to divest, and some, such as the University of Calgary, have ruled out that option. But change is afoot: Concordia University is creating a $5-million fossil-free fund, while faculty and students at the University of British Columbia and University of Victoria have voted in favour of divesting. Several churches have divested. And one Toronto-based foundation this year took its investments out of oil sands and coal and is putting them into renewable energy – including one initiative that converts zoo manure into biogas.