Editor’s Note: A message from Miriam Eide, Coordinating Director, Fossil Free CA follows below.

Late January 2023, Senator Gonzalez with joint authors of Senator Wiener and Senator Stern reintroduced the divestment bill! SB252 Fossil Fuel Divestment was introduced as part of a Climate Accountability Package that also includes:

  • SB 253 – the Carbon Accountability Act – Senator Wiener – Corporate disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions
  • SB 261 – the Climate Risk Disclosure Act – Senator Stern – Bank disclosure of material climate-related financial risk

Fact Sheet | Bill Language

And the bill has been covered by the press!

Politico | CalMatters | Forbes | Pensions and Investments | Daily Kos | KCRA | SFGate

Already SB252 has 20 organizational sign ons! Help us expand that list by sharing the sign on link with your networks!
  • Our first CA Divestment Bill Coalition meeting will be on February 9th at 4pm – email me if you’d like to join and I’ll share the link.
  • We also have several subteams!
    • Municipal Support for Divestment – Alternate Tuesdays from 3-4pm
    • Research Team – Alternate Tuesdays from 4-5pm

The Union team hosted a webinar featuring union members working on divestment in their unions, Senator Gonzalez, and Zara Ahsan from Youth Vs Apocalypse. The webinar was amazing – stay tuned for the recording soon. The webinar had 91 attendees at its high point with 188 registrations! This is a record for FFCA in recent memory.

A group of CalSTRS team members attended the CalSTRS board meeting where Jane began conversations with the staff from both State Treasurer Fiona Ma and State Controller Malia Cohen’s staff (both already support divestment). Hopefully these discussions will lead to more active support from both.

I look forward to the upcoming weeks at Fossil Free California – there is so much incredible work going on! Together we make it happen!

Best,

Miriam Eide, Coordinating Director

Miriam@FossilFreeCA.org pronouns: she, her, hers