“It’s not hard to see that the writing is on the wall, that investors across the board are not making any distinction. It’s not just about coal anymore — they see all fossil fuels as problematic. And I don’t think that it will take very long before we see oil and gas receiving the same treatment that coal has gotten from investors and the financial community.”

GUEST: Justin Guay, director of global climate strategy at the Sunrise Project. Justin previously managed grant-making and strategy development for global coal campaigns at the ClimateWorks Foundation and Packard Foundation.

SHOW NOTES: Fossil fuel divestment ain’t what it used to be. In a good way, if you ask advocates.

In this episode — the second episode of Political Climate’s special DITCHED miniseries — we get further into the weeds on what’s driving the Divest/Invest movement and where it’s going. We cover a lot and connect the dots in an interview with Justin Guay, director of global climate strategy at the Sunrise Project.

Prior to joining Sunrise, Justin managed grant-making and strategy development for global coal campaigns at the ClimateWorks Foundation and Packard Foundation. He also ran the Sierra Club’s International Coal Campaign, with a special focus on international finance.

In this conversation, we discuss how cutting off the flow of capital into fossil fuels has taken on a variety of different forms, as well as lessons learned from coal divestment that could influence a shift away from oil and gas. Justin addresses the tricky question of whether making fossil fuels harder to finance will actually curb demand for these products. We also talk about what a future without fossil fuels would look like, and how it could affect individual workers and even geopolitical relations. And that’s not all. 

Listen to the full episode. 

We launched the DITCHED miniseries to shed light on the divestment movement, and the growing trend of moving money out of fossil fuels and into more sustainable investments. Episodes air Mondays on Political Climate. Subscribe here!

Recommended reading:

• Foreign Affairs: Coronavirus Bailouts Stoke Climate Change
• IEEFA: Over 100 Global Financial Institutions Are Exiting Coal, With More to Come
• GTM: Devil in the Details for World’s Largest Coal Investor
• Reinsurance News: California to conduct first climate-related stress test for re/insurers
• FT: JPMorgan Chase removes former oil boss from lead director role
• World Oil: Chesapeake joins more than 200 other bankrupt U.S. shale producers

Episodes of DITCHED will air Mondays over the next several weeks. Listen and subscribe to Political Climate on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play or wherever you get podcasts!