PROTESTORS staged a demonstration outside of Glasgow City Chambers on Tuesday to call on the Strathclyde Pension Fund to cease investments in companies which fuel the climate crisis and the genocide in Gaza.
Members of Palestine solidarity, climate action and trade union groups took to the city centre ahead of the Strathclyde Pension Fund committee meeting after it was revealed the fund invests an estimated £434 million in fossil fuel companies Shell, TotalEnergies and Eni.
Research by Oil Change International revealed that all three companies supply oil to Israel and are complicit in the ongoing bombardment of Palestinian territories, with Tuesday’s protest aiming to pressure the fund to commit to future divestment from arms and technology used by Israeli forces.
Matthew Jones from Time to Divest Glasgow, one of the groups involved in the demonstration, said: “It is clear that the genocide in Gaza will be seen as one of history’s great crimes.
“The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court have stated that crimes are taking place, that the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank are illegal and that governments and other bodies including investors must act.
“It is time to divest from companies involved with Israel and particularly those directly involved in the genocide to protect ourselves and Strathclyde Pension Fund from being complicit in these war crimes."
The protest comes four years after Glasgow City Councillors voted in favour of divesting the Strathclyde Pension Fund from fossil fuels, though a timeline for such divestment has still not been set and no clear strategy for ending investments has been implemented.
Figures from March show the fund invests £41.3 million in Eni, £12.5 million in French oil company TotalEnergies and £11.8 million in Royal Dutch Shell.
Stuart Graham from the Unison Scotland International Committee said: "In 2021 Strathclyde Pension Fund claimed it was putting fossil fuel companies on notice that, if they don’t take their responsibilities on climate seriously, they would be dropped from the portfolio.
"We demand that Strathclyde Pension Fund invests in life and the local infrastructure Glasgow requires to move towards a low carbon economy that would create jobs and long-term investments, not investing in energy companies that are driving global climate breakdown while enabling and profiting from genocide.
“Nor do we want our retirement based on the profits of war through financing weapons manufacturers, particularly when it is always the working class against whom these weapons are used."
In March 2024, Glasgow City Council passed a motion where it recognised that the ICJ’s ruling places moral obligations on institutions in the UK at all levels of government to ensure they are not directly or indirectly supporting genocide.
Direct investments in companies that profit directly or indirectly from genocide exist still in Strathclyde Pension Fund’s portfolio more than a year after this decision.
Campaigners urged Glasgow City Council Pension Committee, as the administrating body of Strathclyde Pension Fund, to act decisively to ensure it acts in line with its commitments and avoid allegations of directly or indirectly supporting genocide via its investment strategies.
Groups protesting included Unison Scotland, Glasgow Trades Union Council, Time to Divest Glasgow, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Extinction Rebellion Glasgow, Protest in Harmony Glasgow and Divest Strathclyde.
