Attendance:
Here:
Thea, Emma, Michael
Excused:
Simeon, Devra, JP
Not:
Maddy, Aileen, Stefan
Agenda
Business of the Day:
- KyotoNow! Resolution
Minutes
KyotoNOW!
- Rebecca Macies, 14
- Withdraw money from fossil fuel industry
- Put 30% of divested funds into sustainable funds
- This is a pretty loose definition, anything having to do with the green economy
- Cornell is committed to carbon neutrality
- But we are not actually if our endowment is invested in fossil fuels
- STAR ranking
- We are 1 down from platinum but have room for improvement with investment
- Filed a FOIA request through state of NY to see where endowment is, but it is private information
- It seems like we have a lot of money in fossil fuels though
- Alyssa T. 2013
- Cornell has divested in past
- Divested from South African apartheid
- Divested from oil in Darfur
- Anna-Lisa 2014
- Want to leave flexibility- do not think it is appropriate to dictate Cornell’s investments
- Negative screen — get rid of bad
- Positive screen — maximize good investments
- Cornell was able to do this in the past, even with complicated portfolios
- So far 1135 people signed petition, and organizational endorsements from clubs on campus
- Last be it therefore resolved clause:
- Founded on timelines other schools have used
- They understand that this is an aggressive timeline, this would be a symbolic victory
- This was addressed 4 years ago but right before the 2008 financial crisis
- Rebecca
- STARS report proves that historically Cornell already has sustainable funds invested
- There is support and action here
- Julia Fiore 2013
- Harvard and Yale are also making divestment campaigns
- Alyssa
- There is a sore 16 that colleges should stop divesting in
- Anna-Lisa
- They have petitioned and asked to see the endowment but this will not happen any time soon
- They have done their groundwork and homework
- Rebecca
- They feel they can have impact here without being overbearing
- Responsibility would be put on board of trustees investment committee
- Anna-Lisa
- Alumni and community members are supporting this campaign and reached out
- Threatening the university with stopping donations until this is looked at
- Strategy can be left up to people who know how to do this
Debate
- It is very reasonable� more than we thought than we thought when we originally read the resolution
- Being harsh on purpose
- What we do needs to correspond to what we already pledged
- This is a relevant cause
- This is a great idea but the resolution doesn’t fit it
- 30% of the divested funds needs to be clarified in the resolution
- Do we want to set this precedent?
- There is a network of colleges working on this to develop this idea
- Should have more be it therefore resolved clauses
- It doesn’t portray what they want
- We want to rewrite it with them but we believe in what they are seeing
- Conclusion: we will ask them to edit their resolution and come back in a week