TIAA Must End Toxic and Immoral Fossil Fuel Investments
DON LIEBER, IRIS MARIE BLOOM, CAROLINE LEVINE, AMY GRAY in Common Dreams
Yet the Teachers Insurance and Annuity
Association of America (TIAA) invests a shockingly high proportion of its assets under management in
fossil fuels. As teachers, health professionals, and plan participants, we are
horrified by this and demand that TIAA end these toxic and immoral investments.
Health experts have long been alarmed
by coal’s deadly impact on human health worldwide; a new report details that
it is even deadlier than previously thought: Production alone killed 460,000
people in the U.S. in the past 20 years. Thousands are still dying each year,
directly from coal production.
TIAA is a major investor in coal. TIAA is the world’s largest coal bond investor in the biggest coal producer on Earth, Adani; overall, it’s the fourth largest investor in coal bonds on the planet.
TIAA holds a staggering $78 billion in oil
and gas investments. This includes direct holdings in
the world’s largest and dirtiest fossil fuel producers like ExxonMobil and
TotalEnergies. TIAA is the second largest investor in fossil fuel bonds on
the planet.
These investments have horrific global health implications and cause direct harm to millions of the world’s most vulnerable people, particularly children in the Global South.
In Delhi, the world’s second most populous city, 1 in 3 children have
asthma and airway obstruction attributed to fossil fuel PM2 exposure, described
as “like breathing poison.”
Just a few subway stops from TIAA’s 3rd
Avenue headquarters in Manhattan, where executives amass millions in annual
compensation, children in the Bronx suffer some of the highest asthma rates
in North America.
Across the U.S., from inner city Los Angeles to Gulf
Coast Louisiana to rural Pennsylvania, children in marginalized communities
suffer disproportionate health impacts from fossil fuel exposure with lifetime
implications: respiratory conditions, neurological disorders, neonatal complications, and even
pediatric cancers are all
linked directly to fossil fuels via direct exposure or residential proximity to
production sites.
The global harm to human health from fossil
fuels is staggering: 1 in 5 preventable deaths is caused by fossil fuel air
pollution, according to Harvard researchers.
As world governments gather for COP28, we
demand that TIAA:
- Establish a fossil fuel exclusion policy for all future investing, effective immediately.
- Dump all deadly coal bonds immediately.
- Establish a rapid timeline to phase out all existing holdings connected with fossil fuels, in alignment with established global reduction targets.
TIAA’s massive fossil fuel investments provide the finance which enables huge capital-intensive oil and gas pipelines and drilling projects now underway across Africa, Asia, and North and South America.
This
ensures catastrophic additional greenhouse gas emissions into the future, while
exacerbating existing global health disparities; poisoning local air, water,
and soil; and displacing thousands.
We reject any concept of “fiduciary
responsibility” which ignores fossil fuel investments’ violations of global
health and climate justice.
From Delhi to Detroit, the most vulnerable
people bear the brunt of fossil-fueled climate chaos including worsening fires,
floods, smoke, toxic air, and deadly heat.
TIAA’s marketing slogan is “Invest in Your
Legacy”—but the only legacy derived from billions in fossil fuel investments is
climate chaos, environmental destruction, disease, and death.
In October, the National Academy of Medicine—the most revered medical organization in the U.S.—announced its commitment to divest from fossil fuels, joining nearly 1,600 institutions around the world.
The teachers,
physicians, and nurses urge TIAA to stop ignoring global health experts;
hundreds of thousands of TIAA clients have
already spoken out.
It’s our money, and it’s past time TIAA
divest from fossil fuels.
DON LIEBER is a surgical technologist and campaign director of First, Do No Harm, the healthcare divestment campaign that successfully divested NAM from fossil fuels.
IRIS MARIE BLOOM has worked for peace and justice all her life, including founding Protecting Our Waters in 2009, fighting fracking in Pennsylvania, helping defeat Pilgrim Oil Pipelines in New York, and co-founding TIAA-Divest in 2020.
CAROLINE LEVINE is a professor at Cornell University and member of the coordinating committee of TIAA-Divest.
AMY GRAY is currently the associate director of climate finance with Stand.earth, and coordinates the Climate Safe Pensions Network.