Credit: Nàme and Jorge Del Àngel
Youth for Climate Luxembourg has teamed up with Greenpeace Luxembourg to organise a public protest against fossil fuel investments on Friday 25 March 2022, departing from Place de Clairefontaine in Luxembourg-Ville at 14:00.
People of all ages are invited to take part in this protest, which is taking place under the slogan #PeopleNotProfit. The demonstration targets the financial sector and more specifically the Luxembourg sovereign pension fund FDC (Fonds de Compensation), which is currently revising its investment strategy for the next five years. Protesters will set out in front of Luxembourg's Ministry of Finance before finishing their route at the FDC building located in Avenue de la Porte-Neuve.
According to the organisers, although Luxembourg is a small country, it plays a big role on the global financial stage, thus having a significant impact on its contribution to the climate crisis. Luxembourg’s financial sector generates one-third of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Its fund industry is the largest investment fund centre in Europe and the second largest in the world. Every year, trillions of euros flow through the Grand Duchy, a lot of them into fossil fuel industries, argued the organisers, with so-called "green" funds representing only about 10% of all the funds domiciled in Luxembourg.
A Greenpeace analysis revealed that alleged sustainable funds fail at directing more capital towards sustainable economic activities than traditional funds. The organisers described this as "a blatant case of greenwashing", adding that the public finance situation is "not much better". They argued that the FDC, the only pension fund for employees of the private sector in Luxembourg, is investing approximately €500 million in coal, fuel and gas industries every year.
Consequently, Youth for Climate Luxembourg and Greenpeace Luxembourg have demanded that the sovereign funds, and Luxembourg’s pension fund in particular, achieve the following:
- Align its investments with the objective of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C maximum:
- stop investing contributions from private-sector employees in fossil fuel companies;
- put an immediate end to funding companies that are unable to transition to a Paris-compatible business model, e.g. the coal industry. Moreover, investing in companies with "particularly contentious" operations such as arctic drilling, fracking, oil shale extraction, etc. "must cease immediately";
- put an end to all investments in nuclear energy.
- Prevent the FDC from continuing to invest public money in climate-damaging industries:
- it is for this reason that the two organisations have demanded complete transparency: the FDC’s investment plans "must be made available to the public".
- The responsible parties at the FDC should assume their responsibilities for the future generations;
- The newly appointed Minister for Social Security, Claude Hagen, should "at all cost" prevent public money and social contributions from being invested in assets that are harmful to the environment and its inhabitants.
The organisations also stressed: "The credibility of the government in terms of climate protection and sustainability is at stake: it is imperative that the ministers and members of parliament take action now!"
