PROTEST TONIGHT at 6pm HAYMARKET SQUARE
Join us at 6pm tonight for a demonstration outside the offices of the Lothian Pension Fund Committee at 9 Haymarket Square.
Let’s make the councillors who sit on the LPF feel the pressure for divestment that is building globally.
Campaigners from Extinction Rebellion Scotland, Divest Lothian, Friends of the Earth Scotland and Protest in Harmony demonstrated outside the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association Investment conference in Edinburgh this morning.
The protest included a performance calling on delegates to acknowledge they are currently hugely underestimating climate risk and to take bold action to address this.
This annual Pension Investment conference brings over 800 delegates to Edinburgh from across the UK pension investment industry; an industry which invests more that £1.3 trillion on behalf of 30 million people.
Attracting the attention of delegates with singing and a ‘Big Oil Funk’ dance, campaigners portrayed a pension fund leader with his head in the sand being persuaded by actuaries and climate scientists to look up and “Face the Climate Risks”.
They warn of the “catastrophic” risks to communities and the economy which are being ignored by pension funds due to the flawed climate risk assessments supplied by their advisers, according to ‘Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature’, a report published in January 2025 by The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, in conjunction with climate scientists at the University of Exeter.
The report explains how climate change and nature-driven risks have been hugely underestimated through flawed economic modelling and risk assessment processes. It sets out that we are on a trajectory to catastrophic warming levels of > 2°C by 2050, leading to a possible 50% contraction of the global economy within the lifetimes of current pension savers.
Alexander Forbes, 35, Lifeguard and XR Edinburgh & Lothians, said: “The warning from the actuaries, the risk experts, couldn’t be more stark. Risk management by pension funds is currently blind to systemic climate, nature, societal and economic risks.
“The lack of urgency within governments to make the sweeping policy changes necessary – and within the pension industry to demand that they do – can be directly attributed to the flawed economic modelling and risk assessment processes widely considered authoritative, that underestimate the risk.
“We urgently need the people managing our pension savings to boldly face these risks, be honest about the risks with pension savers and demand the government take immediate policy action to accelerate the energy transition and reduce emissions.”
The actuaries’ report comes at a time when UK pension funds are investing an estimated £88 billion in fossil fuel companies which, buoyed by support from the new US administration, are intent on increasing oil and gas production and worsening the climate crisis, as evidenced by BP’s ‘reset’ announced in February.
Joan Forehand, 60, retired accountant and Divest Lothian, said: “Pension fund managers have their heads in the sand when it comes to climate risk. They need to look at the evidence in front of them, which risk experts have hammered home. A robust approach to climate risk assessment would clearly show that investing in the fossil fuel industry is not in the interests of its members.
“Divestment by pension funds would be both economically wise, and would send a strong signal to governments that policies and subsidies favouring the fossil fuel industry must be rapidly removed.”
Meanwhile climate records continue to be broken and extreme weather is devastating millions of lives around the world.
Last year, 2024, was the hottest on record, and the first year with an average temperature exceeding 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. January 2025 was the warmest January on record, surprising scientists who had expected it to be cooler due to transition from El Niño to La Niña conditions.
Sally Clark, divestment campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said:
“Pension funds are in charge of our savings, they are responsible for our futures – but if they keep investing in fossil fuels, we won’t have a liveable planet or positive future to retire into.
“The money moved away from fossil fuels could instead be invested in ways that support local communities and protect the planet for everyone, like renewable energy, warm homes and social housing.”
The campaigners demand that pension fund leaders face the climate risks and urgently:
PICTURES: Siobhian Chalmers
The Scottish Greens’ Lothian MSP, Alison Johnstone, has called for Lothian Pension Fund to end its multi-million pound investment in fossil fuels and instead make more socially responsible investments.
New research from Friends of the Earth Scotland shows that council pension funds in Scotland invest £1.2bn in fossil fuel giants, with devastating consequences for communities, climate and their own finances.
Lothian Pension Fund, which is operated by City of Edinburgh Council for its own area and on behalf of East Lothian, West Lothian and Midlothian, have agreed not to make new investments in fossil fuel companies they do not already invest in, but this does not end existing investments in climate-wrecking companies, or prevent them from increasing.
Alison Johnstone said: “Public pension funds in Scotland continue to invest millions to bankroll fossil fuel companies every year. Lothian Pension Fund invests £165m in major polluters, at a time when leadership is needed in tackling the climate crisis.
“The public don’t want to see these pension funds exacerbating the problem, particularly when this cash could be invested into socially responsible endeavours like green energy production, house building and public transport improvements.
“This year the world will come to Scotland when Glasgow hosts the UN climate change summit. It’s time for Scotland to take a lead in tackling the climate crisis, and one of the most straightforward ways we can begin to do that is by ending these public investments in big oil and gas.
“Lothian Pension Fund must show that it is serious about tackling the climate emergency by bringing its influence to bear and ending these obscene oil and gas investments.”
