David Lammy, Labour’s London mayoral candidate, has urged current mayor, Boris Johnson, to stop the London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) investing in energy companies that burn fossil fuels.
Johnson has the power to appoint the board of the LPFA, which recently elected a new acting chairman.
Currently, the LPFA has approximately £48 million (€65 million) invested in fossil fuels through firms including Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, as well as global oil giants such as Chevron, BP, Shell and Total.
Lammy has said through social media and various outlets that he vows to end this practice. He posted on Twitter: “If Boris is serious about tackling pollution he’d stop investing in fossil fuels. That’s what I’d do as mayor.”
The pollution issue aside, with commodity values tumbling, including a halving of the oil price in a year, some of these companies may have lost their investment value.
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