FossilFreeUMC

Over $1 billion UMC investments in fossil fuels!

Your donation can help change these numbers.

Countdown to General Conference and finally another chance IN 8 YEARS to ask again that The United Methodist Church divests from fossil fuels. Our calculations: based on public information from 2021-2023, Wespath has a 4-5% exposure to fossil fuels. The United Methodist Church holds over $1 BILLION US DOLLARS in fossil fuel investments.

We don’t like those numbers.

Here are some other numbers we don’t like: right now, 1 BILLION children at extremely high risk from climate impacts and un/natural disasters. By 2050, with rising heat, that number will be 2 BILLION children at extremely high risk, or one-third of the world’s children.

We don’t like these numbers.

Of our growing generation–children are the most vulnerable!–every baby born RIGHT NOW faces these numbers:

• 1 billion highly exposed to air pollution
• 400 million highly exposed to cyclonic storms
• 820 million highly exposed to rising heat.
• 920 million highly exposed to water scarcity
• and more!

We repent of these numbers!

Girls are especially vulnerable. Study shows that girls ages 11-14 were twice as likely to be married following climate-fueled heatwaves. There showed an 119% increase in young girls forced to into marriage following drought and food scarcity. Millions of girls are at risk.

We don’t like these numbers!

Your donation can help change these numbers, numbers like these: 2 million dead from climate impacts and $4.3 trillion in economic losses just in the last 50 years.

Even were we to calculate the numbers based purely on return on investment, we still don’t like the numbers. Fossil fuel companies have underperformed for years, fossil free stocks do better! Oil and gas companies had a war-profit bounce in 2022 that still did not do as well. What did they use that cash-bounce for? Oil and gas companies used profits for 100 billion in payouts to shareholders and to buy back stock. They continue to expand production. All while millions of unplugged wells are neglected or abandoned in the US alone, with billions in clean up and billions of children at risk.

We don’t like these numbers.

Please consider a donation to Fossil Free UMC. Write ‘fossil free umc’ in the notes to ensure your donation comes our way. We are asking for recurring donations if it is in your budget, as this effort will need us for a while. After the General Conference votes to divest, that is when the real work begins.

Help us get to a place where we can say, “We like those numbers!!”

Thank you.

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Find information about child risks at these links: UNICEF, World Council of Churches, Save The Children, Child Refugees. Read the current state of the climate from World Meteorological Organization and Copernicus. Read what happened following just one climate-fueled, Cyclone Freddie, storm in Malawi. Read, What’s at Stake.

Find information about Wespath investments here. We draw our calculations from public investment information and funds, including the US Equity Fund, International Equity Fund, Fixed Income Fund, Inflation Protection Fund and others from 2021 – 2023.