CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
The University of Hawaii-Manoa campus.
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I read with disgust the Sept. 10 story in the University of Hawaii student newspaper Ka Leo, “UH coming short on fossil fuel divestment.”
It begins, “On Thursday, the (Board of Regents’) investment manager, UBS Financial Services Inc.,” reported that “the three year divestment period that was mandated in 2015 will not provide sufficient time for the investment managers to fully divest from fossil fuel companies.”
Many worked long and hard to divest UH. It’s infuriating that UBS hasn’t divested as directed by its client.
Even casual investors know that exchange-traded funds and mutual funds continually change stocks, and that investors don’t control that. It’s absurd that UBS, one of the world’s largest investment firms, only recently realized this was a poor strategy. What has it been doing? Not its professional duty, obviously.
This incompetence hurts the entire divestment movement by casting doubt on whether the $6.24 trillion committed to be removed from fossil-fuel investments will in fact be divested.
Brodie Lockard
Divest UH organizer
Kailua
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