This post was written by Oil Sands Divestment and published on October 17, 2021

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The New York Times ran an interesting piece this week about private equity companies buying up fossil fuel shares.

To summarize, as there’s more pressure on banks and pension funds to divest from fossil fuels, private equity companies that often operate below the public radar and may be less scrupulous than public entities may be buying those shares.

This is a potential problem with divestment and boycotts. But it doesn’t mean we should give up on divestment altogether. As public citizens we can put pressure on banks, pension funds and money managers to divest. And we should also keep informed about who is buying fossil fuel stocks to make sure that everyone knows who is promoting a greater climate emergency, and make sure our money isn’t managed by these private equity companies.