Image may contain: Person, Human, Crowd

A march is happening in protest of UoM’s investment in fossil fuel

UoM protesters will be be joined by Leeds, Loughborough and Cambridge universities

| UPDATED

Currently the University of Manchester is investing £7,694,138 in fossil fuels. Including: £1,771,536 Glencore, £1,102,399 Valero Energy and £744,582 Rio Tinto. Accumulating to 3.9% of total endowment fund of £197,292,240.

Students from the People and Planet society have campaingned hard in the last year for a full divestment policy, with little response from the Board of Governers.

This year as part of a 3 year campaign to get the University of Manchester to divest from fossil fuels, the People and Planet Society has ramped up the pressure and joined forces with other universities across the UK who have not yet had a commitment to divest – including Leeds, Cambridge, UEA and UCL – to hold a National Day of Action for divestment.

The event takes place on Wednesday 22nd Novemeber starting with a march at 1:30pm from All Saints Park (MMU) towards Whitworth Arch. When at 2pm there will be a sit-in to block anybody from walking through the arch. Meanwhile the Board of Governors will be meeting in the exact building above the protest.

Campaign organiser Lizzy Haughton said of the protest:

“Manchester is seriously lagging behind other Russell Group institutions in its sustainability.”

“It is our tuition fees which are funding these investments, we should have a say in where they’re placed.”

Manchester Metropolitan University are leading by example having fully divested from all fossil fuels in 2016; additinally committing over £2.2 million in research funding into renewables industry since 2001.

The protest will be joined by the established BDS group who are running parallel campaigns to persuade the University to divest from the international arms trade. The movement has also received support from the Labour Students Society and the Green Society.

The protest will begin at 1:30 at the All Saints Park on the MMU campus, the sit-in will commence from 2pm under the Whitworth Arch.