“At a financial level [divestment] may look quite insubstantial, but it’s at a social level, and in the changes that we’re trying to get through institutions like UCT where it becomes really important,” said Le Page.
“It doesn’t make sense for an institution like UCT, which is a centre of excellence in climate change research, to be investing in fossil fuels. It needs to change [and] it needs to be a social leader,” he said.
UCT students and members of the Green Campus Initiative, Fossil Free South Africa and the Climate Justice Charter Movement hand over their memorandum to chairperson of the UPRI, Professor Tom Moultrie, during a protest on UCT’s middle campus, calling for the university to divest from fossil fuels on Tuesday, 11 May 2021. (Photo: Victoria O’Regan)