CITY HALL — A majority of Chicago aldermen have endorsed a measure that would order the city's pension boards to stop investing in companies that produce fossil fuels and sell its investments in oil and gas within five years.
Proposed by the City Council's Progressive Caucus, the resolution authored by Ald. John Arena (45th) would add Chicago to list of cities that have joined a push to divest from companies that use fossil fuel to produce energy as a way of fighting climate change.
Thirty-nine members of the council have signed on to the resolution, which would require the city's stocks and bonds in fuel companies to be sold by 2022.
In addition, the measure calls on Chicago's four pension funds to immediately stop investing in fossil fuel companies.
The city's effort is part of a campaign by 350.org that calls for colleges and universities, as well as cities, religious institutions and pension funds to withdraw their investments from fossil fuel companies.
Other American cities to order their pension funds to sell their fossil fuel holdings include Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
"Climate change means deadly heat waves, such as the one that killed 739 vulnerable Chicagoans in the summer of 1995, a polluted Lake Michigan and dirty air," Arena said in a statement. "We cannot stand for this as representatives of the people and as stewards of their future."
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