The Guardian: Still hypocritical on pensions

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The Guardian has launched an attack on pension funds which invest in fossil fuel assets, accusing them of “… taking an ill-advised gamble on climate change …”. There is just one problem with this stern advice – the Guardian recently admitted that their own pension fund is invested in fossil fuels.

The Guardian on Pensions;

Almost half the world’s top pension funds are taking an ill-advised gamble on climate change, according to a financial thinktank.

The Asset Owners Disclosure Project’s (AODP) annual index of 500 of the largest global asset owners found that 232 of them had done little or nothing to protect their investments from the financial upheavals predicted due to climate change.

Financial experts, including the president of the World Bank and the governor of the Bank of England, have warned that fossil fuel assets are risky investments because their reserves of coal, oil and gas cannot be burned if the world is to avoid the most extreme impacts of climate change.

As Josh hilariously illustrated, as Bishop Hill reported, the Guardian pension fund holds substantial investments in fossil fuel assets.

If you need more evidence of the Guardian’s rather strange approach to “ethical” investment, on the 18th April, the Guardian offered advice on pensions – which included the following gem.

The low-cost route

All the funds above are actively managed, so you end up paying fund managers’ salaries. An alternative is to use index funds. Two worth considering are the Vanguard UK Equity Income, which yields 3.9% and has an annual fee of 0.22% – at least 0.5% less than the standard active fund – and the Legal & General FTSE 100 Index, yielding 3.3% with an annual charge of just 0.1%.

Both the Vanguard UK Equity Income fund, and the Legal & General FTSE 100 Index, have substantial investments in Tobacco and fossil fuel assets.