FossilFreeUMC

Watch the Summit Here

See the various speakers at the following times on the video, or find the separate presentations at the YouTube link above: 00:00 – Intro 2:51 – Bishop Sandra K. Olewine 11:55 – William Morris 1:25:47 – Jim Antal 2:12:26 – Jake Barnett 2:36:31 – Julia Frisbie 3:04:00 – Daniel Cohn

The California-Nevada Conference Council on Finance and Administration organized this Summit on Fossil Fuel Divestment, held on March 25-26, 2025, to follow through on a Recommendation on fossil fuel divestment as a response to climate change that was passed in June 2024, at the California-Nevada Annual Conference Session. The purpose of the Summit is to: 1) to “uphold best practices for investment management,” 2) to “identify sound financial strategies to screen out fossil fuels from our conference investment portfolios,” and 3) to “make a report, including recommendations, to the 2025 Annual Conference.” 

Bishop Sandra Olewine offered an initial address on Tuesday evening, followed by William Morris , from the California-Pacific Annual Conference, who is an organizer with GreenFaith and chairs Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA). He shared his knowledge and experience working with GreenFaith on their People vs. Fossil Fuels campaign, and his first-hand experience of the impacts and responses to the LA fires. 

Wednesday morning speakers included:

• The Rev. Jim Antal, author of Climate Church, Climate World, who talked about why and how the United Church of Christ divested from fossil fuels and their process for doing so.
• Jake Barnet from Wespath who spoke about Wespath’s investment management practices and changes they have recently made to make it easier for pastors to transfer their pensions and for Annual Conferences and other UM institutions transfer their holdings into Wespath’s low-carbon funds.
• Julia Frisbie, Executive Director of the Faith Foundation Northwest, who spoke about how agencies can divest from fossil fuels to Wespath’s low-carbon Social Values Choice Funds and how the Faith Foundation Northwest and PNW Annual Conference did so.
• Daniel Cohn, analyst for Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), offered financial reasons for divesting from fossil fuels, discuss risks and returns, and about how to move to fossil free funds. 

Topics covered included fossil fuel divestment as a moral and spiritual challenge, how other churches and annual conferences have divested from fossil fuels, how divestment from fossil fuels contributes to climate justice, comparative risks and returns of low carbon funds vs. investments in fossil fuel corporations,  financial reasons to divest from fossil fuels, and how to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in a fiscally and socially responsible way.