Agenda item

To receive any deputations.

Dr Christelle Blunden spoke on behalf of a group of Southampton-based pension fund members deeply concerned about climate-related financial risk. The group were encouraged that the sub-committee’s agenda contained climate-related financial reporting including modelling how climate change will impact the Fund.

Dr Blunden highlighted the research across the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) by Platform, showing the Hampshire Pension Fund had £136m (2% of the Fund) invested in fossil fuel companies. Dr Blunden said she did not understand why the Fund has yet to adopt a formal position on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and moved away from the fossil fuel industry altogether.

With reference to the meeting’s agenda Dr Blunden said that she celebrated the Pension Fund’s engagement that had identified the need for Exxon Mobile to reduce their carbon emissions and that the Pension Fund’s investment manager had disinvested due to the company’s weak ambitions in this area.

Dr Blunden highlighted research from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research that at the current rate of climate change under a business as usual scenario one can expect that by the turn of the century this planet will only be able to support 1/8th of the current global population. Decisions taken in this decade will be the most likely determinant of whether the planet avoids that future or not. Recent events in Ukraine show that energy companies don’t have a moral conscience until they are forced into a position.

Dr Blunden concluded by asserting that if the Pension Fund were to ask its scheme members they would support decarbonisation. If the Pension Fund were to write the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact’s 1.5C goal into its central investment position it would help pull through the broader business and political will for the huge employment-generating programmes needed for home and business building retrofits. It would help those responsible business and civil society leaders who are dedicating their lives to trying to get the planet to a safe, sustainable economic model; one that’s safe for everyone - not just the fortunate few.

Ms Christine Holloway spoke on behalf of a group of Hampshire Pension Fund members – Hampshire Pension Fund Divest. Ms Holloway last made a deputation to the Pension Fund Panel and Board in July 2020. She expressed her disappointment that in her view ACCESS had made no obvious progress and of Hampshire’s policy that ‘disinvesting from fossil fuel companies at the current time is not the most appropriate action to transition to a low carbon economy’.

Ms Holloway continued by stating that a 1.5C warming limited had been accepted by governments and confirmed at the Glasgow Climate Pact but seemingly not accepted by the Hampshire Pension Fund.

Ms Holloway asked the Pension Fund to do two things:

1.    Ask Pension Fund members their views, and

2.    Listen to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose recent report warned that an increase above 1.5 degrees looks likely on current trends and would result in irreversible impacts.

The Chairman thanked Dr Blunden and Ms Holloway for their deputations and said that they would see action from the Pension Fund furthering its response to climate change as part of the papers for the Pension Fund Panel and Board meeting on 25 March 2022.