Student coalition urges full fossil fuel divestment by 2030

A coalition of students in Singapore has called on universities to transition away from the fossil fuel industry by 2030, as part of a report the group released on Monday 17 January detailing “extensive” links between the parties, writes Vanessa Lim for Channel News Asia.

Titled Fossil-Fuelled Universities, the 68-page report highlighted linkages between the fossil fuel industry and universities in areas including finance and management. It was published by Students for a Fossil Free Future (S4F), a coalition made up of 40 students from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University, Singapore University of Technology and Design and Yale-NUS College.

According to the report, NUS and NTU both have endowment funds that are “indirectly” invested in fossil fuels. For NUS, this sum is “at least SG$59 million"(US$44 million) – a figure the report deduced from a statement given by NUS Investment Office in March 2019 that the university’s indirect investment in fossil fuels made up a “low single digit” percentage of its total endowment fund which, as of 2021, stood at SG$5.9 billion.
Full report on the Channel News Asia site