is prepared to carry out mass array... >> if you want free press in the new democracy, let the journalists live. when they object to a business, or policy or system. governments pension funs. universities foundation, have pulled out their money. does it foyers change, we will look at how it works and whether it works. it is inside story. >> hello, i am ray

swarez. for decades one way to object to a country as policies or a corporation's practices or an entire industry, was to use economic leverage. sell shares walk away. and encouraging overs to do the same. in the 60's activists targeted companies making money on military supplies. in the 70's and 80's, it was south after ca's government targeting for dave vestment. in more recent years countries making petroleum products, have been targeted by campaigns. israel has been a prominent target. big institutional investors are urged to sell offings, do without the profits various business produce. today we will ask what

this accomplishes does it work. >> hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets over the weekend. calling for action to come back climate change. now imagine each one of these choosing to use their money against the companies whose views and social goals they oppose. could dave vestment make a difference, and help save the planet. the rock fell evers one of the wealthiest families in history, a family whose welt was built on oil, announced lit be using it's pocketbook to promote change. by divotting from the very product that made them rich. >> i am proud to say that our family, we embrace this irony that our wealth was made through oil. >> valerie rockefeller talked about her family's decision this week, on al jazeera real money, with ali velshi. >> we have been looking at this for a long time, and we have reached out and found the smartest strongest partners we can, because we want to this in a way that will

encouraging overs to join us. and there are increasing numbers of opportunity, solar and wind are already doing very very well. >> the heir's 8000 silty million dollars organization, the fund, is among a list of charities, cities universities and religious organizations recently deciding to dave vest from fossil fuels. according to advisers a fill electronic firm, 181 institutions and local governments and 656 individuals, have pledged $50 billions in assets to dave vest. and the move is growing. pension funds and others more than doubled from 74, to 181. the proclimate movement is relatively young, born and bread on college campuses. but the tactic itself, comes from a long history

of pocketbook protests. in the 1980's, there was a widespread push to divest from anything south african, along with the multinational companies doing business there, as long as apartheid continued. today there's the boycott divotment and sanctions movement. against israel, and it's occupation of palestine. in the 1990's more and more people took their money out of tobacco stocks and the movement has targeted bad working conditions in the garment industry. today, you can explore investment portfolio optioned called socially responsible investments. or s.r. i.s that allow you to put your money where your morals are. in 1995, there were only 55 mutual funds that offered s.r.i. accounts today, there are nearly 500. today's technology makes it relatively easy to join and support campaigns ranging from energy issues to human rights.

but one question remains does it work, or just make you feel better? divestment in time on the program, if you believe government or corporations are sinal my doing something wrong, do you put pressure on them by urging divestment, or hardly hurt them in any tangible way, while at the same time giving away, literally selling off your led coalition ranch? joining us for that conversation, the executive director of divest, invest, which advices on how to divest. and author of the politics of protest, social movements in america, and evo welch, the professor of finance and economics at the anderson gradual school of management. let me start with you. is there a track record

for divestment? can you point to cases where it has helped move things forward in a struggle for change of one kind or another? is thank you, it is a pleasure to been here today. so in terms of the dive vest movement around fossil fuels one thing we have been emphasizing here is it's both the movement of capitol from fossil fuel companies but also the investment in new energy solutions. and it is the combination with the investment is where we see the change. and rather than this even being about the economics or the amount of capitol that's become dive vested the social pressure that this shows in terms of the movement so what we emphasizing and building upon a lot of the work of the divestment movement. and desmond tutu has spoken up in support of the fossil five tevezment movement. so i think we have a lot

of. >> so even someone who and not a shareholder himself, or does uhn't have a pension plan somewhere, it opened a conversation with them? raises awareness you may say. >> exactly. having all of those people that came out ointo the street, over 400,000 people, and this really being about something that from people marching through the streets they are able to do with this their own personal assets. to other larger institutions and really the power of this being something of an alignment between one's personal fouls and their investing decisions. >> eva welch you have looks at this, do you think it works. >> unfortunately, not. let me first say, that i have much admire the motives of the people that are trying to do this, pollution is one of the big issues that we face today. but unfortunately, there's no evidence that

divesting from companies has ever looked. which were far more coordinated and far easier to enforce, and unfortunately, none of them really made a difference, so i would argue that in the end, overturned apartheid, was that there was a better alternative, that the voters could vote for, which was nelson mandela. i think if you really want to change policy, what you need to do is put pressure on the politicians to change our policies. i covered the divestment movement in the 1980's, and the companies themselves howled and the government tried to exert pressure in the united states. if it wasn't doing anything, why did they bother. >> they -- the it's hard to say. it is hard to judge the motives. we know there were many other escape values so the boycott was never perfect. there were always other

parties that co provide the resouthers. now, this was an embargo and sanctions that were enforced by various law uhs. very highly coordinated not just in the united states, but all over the world. and even that department work. the divesting of jury some individuals even pension funds, is a drop in the bucket. it's not going to make much difference. what is being sold will be snapped up by overs. it won't change what the executives or exon and other ocompanies are going to do. >> fair point? scale it doesn't really hurt them that much. >> i think this comes down to othe fact really not being about the capitol, we can't compare. we made a $50 billion announcement, and obviously the trillions of dollars that exist, but what this does show is a social and political force of this movement of people from around the world, we have institutions from europe, australia, africa, that

are coming onboard, and i think that totally agreeing with the point about the political implications of having a movement here and it isn't being a matter of divestment, but again coming quack to this piece of the investment in alternatives to build this new energy future. so i think it is really -- it is a narrow argument to just focus on the capitol that's represent ared here. i do think there's a case to been made, the stranded assets the overvaluation of the price of ofossil fuel companies not making it a good investment. but really the stronger argument is the ed call and social dimensionses and the power that this collective force has. jenna suggests we may be looking at it wrong, if we just look at the balance sheets or corporate reports when we try to gauge the effectiveness, is this something that a regular person thinks they can

do. >> absolutely, so it isn't divestment or something else, it is divestment and something else. it is and voting and going to the protections in new york city. it's divestment and talking to your friends and talking to your boss, and talking to your dean about the morality of investing in fossil fuels. and then there's something else there too. it is about getting your incentives in line with your moral objectives. so it was the quakers that pushed their members of their church in the 1700s to stop profiting from the slave ride. and the first of all it was a moral issue, but uh also we can with more effective advocates for abolition, if we are not taking profits from the slave trade. and this has been something that's run through campaigns from the get go. >> i guess that's really where i get a little

stuck on this idea of what effectiveness is. how you you measure it, if it is just making your own hands clean, or i guess your own balance sheet clean. does it really help end the slave tried? help bring down apartheid? encouraging companies to look for other ways to power their processes and production so on? well, the campaigning is a single example. student whose are looking to make a distant issue approximate started talking about it because that's where apartheid is in the united states, touched them. and where they saw uh it touching them, and it was an opportunity for them toe talk to each other o, and to badger trustees and administrators to do something about it. now, most campuses were very very slow to move multibillion dollars portfolios. but that meant a president had to go out to a bunch of angry college students and

explain why they weren't divotting and they never said well, because apartheid is a good system, they came out and said well, we have more effective ways and those would be. x, y, z. and sometimes those were unpleasant conversations. it meant the trustees that didn't talk about foreign policy has to have a conversation can around the board table to discuss whether or not to divest. sometimes they are brief, they said no, but then the president had to speak to the public, and often this led to alternative campaigns and you know what the students that are angry, and protesting and maybe holding signs, after they won, or more frequently when they didn't win, they found other oways to opursue othe same claims. and learned more about the issue uhs and those people who are divesting

from holding fossil fuels well they won't stop with the march and from signing away their shares. they are going to find other ways to pursue the same issue. >> we will be back with more inside story, after this short break, when we return, is divestment a more tangible form of communication then let's say picketing outside a company's headquarters, even if it doesn't happen at scale, in a way that drives down share prices let's say, is it an effective weapon in public campaigns? against an industry or a country? stay with us uh.

you are watching inside story on al jazeera. is it real economic assault, or something more aiken to protest movements that might seek to call public attention to an issue by moving it in front of a larger audience? from the news pages to the business pages. you have heard the professor, suggest in the first part of the program that it's part of a multipronged approach, that certainly divestment by itself won't pull down a structure or a company, but it is part of a public campaign. do you agree with that. >> i love the moral dimensions of it. but i don't think it actually is as wonderful as they think it is. so our protesting thereafter they go into

their classrooms and they do other things. instead i would rather have them spend their energy would recollecting on what could make a difference. we didn't have a civil rights movement succeed in the united states because we said we were going to divest from companies that do business in the south part of america, instead what we did is we actually esigned up voters and we got them to vote. now, yes, it would be nice if this was a compliment, so you sign up the voter, you raise the awareness, that's great, but i would rather spend more time on this then on the divestment issue, it take as lot of time, and effort, a lot of administration, and in the end we will be exhausting and won't be able to do what we need to do which is address the pollution lap which is with fuel taxes with politician that address the issue. with things that are going to be effective. are there company diem

thattics are they would rather not be the subject of public coverage about the fund, wanting to pull money out. even if the effect of the pull out is small. effect may be great. nothing he worries for a moment, common is in the business of making money with oil. that's what their shareholder have tome them. it is their fiduciary obligation under the law, he has to try to make money with fossil fuels. he can't do anything else, will it change their behavior? no. will it make him feel less comfortable, probably yes. it's not like we big goal is to make the c. e. o. of exon feel unhappy, the

big goal is we want to get cleaner energy, better energy, we need grants for the national science foundation to find better fuels which are cheeper than fossil fuels. that's the only way that will stop the pollution on this planet. and i would rather have us spend our effort on accomplishing that then spending it on discussions about divestment. it is a misguided discussion. >> i think it comes back to this question it is not an either or. i have stanford students and stanford alumni who yes, they are trying to get more to take place, but also building alternatives. and investing time and energy, in trying to address the capitollism of climate change. so i don't think it is a matter of should we be putting any energy into divesting or not, but rather can we do that as well as building these alternatives. green bond funds,

innovative technologies, we see these opportunities across classes and really the opportunity to be investing and supporting that, they were i think that unlocked capitol that comes from individuals and institutions that are divesting and then allocating the resources elsewhere david meyer, what do you make of your colleague's point? is. >> the way to get the president of harvard university to call for more investment, in alternative fuel uhs the way to get the president of harvard university to talk about better political alternatives on climate change, so pro-russian separatists pressure her to divest harvard's multibillion dollars endowment from companies that do business in fossil fuels. so basically this is a vehicle for executing pressure on people who are more powerful than just your routine person in the street. and it turns the tension

away from these cheap consumer solutions that make people feel god and don't do anything. so the idea is okay, i want to stop climate change i will flush the toilet less often, and eat less meat, well, you can stop bathing and that still won't change anything. you can expand the conversation. by talk uhing about the deckses between climate and the institutions we all engage with. for me it is the college, for other opeople it is the local government, it is a place to have a gotter conversation, that otherwise goes unattended. >> we will be back after a short break, when we come back, i want to talk to my guests about engangment verses divestment. shareholder activism is the chosen technique, using the very insider status that divestment surrenders as a way to talk directly to corporations and countries about the things they do. stay with us.

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welcome back to inside story on al jazeera america. i'm ray swarez. just recently the rockefeller brothers fund an enormous group controlled by the dissen tents of john d rockefeller pledged to pull it's portfolio out of investments in fossil fuels. they are turning their backs on oil, in another divestment move, still with us, jana nicklas the executive director of divest invest, which advices foundations on how to divest. a professor oversows oologist, and eva welch a professor of the management school. and professor, just before the break, you heard jenna talk about how -- and professor meyer talk about how this put pressure at the top

echelons of these institutions. it was closer to peace a matter of private piety, but putting pressure where it is most effective. >> if i had the ear of the harvard and stanford president, which is what they want to accomplish, i would not try to have a long conversation with them about divestment, and endowments which by the way, have always sorts of intermediate layers, i would have the conversation with them why don't you endow a few more chairs or an energy institute. now stanford does fantastic work in this already, so they have an alternative nudger. this is what universities are really great at, we do fantastic research in the united states, we are are really fantastic the best in the world, that's where we should be directing our energy towards in the university as students and faculty, that could make the world a better place, for mar so than whispering to them can you full out money from your

divestments. shareholders annual meeting where owning a share, gives you a chance to the people that run. once you pull your money out, do you use some of your clout? choosing a strategic directions the ever the company, that you might have had had you stayed. >> one thing weakened have been advising and engaging, and we now have a coalition only almost 70 foundations that have joined this movement, is to keep a very national percentage of the holdings in these companies to be able to do exactly that, so we would agree with you that the pressure that is able to be put upon these company through shareholder odd voting rights cassie and the numerous examples of the powers that they have been able to have and 6ing companies through that we do work with the fund. they have been a pioneer in this as you saw

recently engaging with exon around this, i think have shown that it is possible tock able to move. but it does uhn't have to be a significant amount that is representative in this way, to be able to have that influence. >> david, meyer, when the era of the pension and we were all hustled into 401 ks tens of millions of people bake shareholders who never would have been. who never thought of themselves as the type of people that buy and sell stocks. does this approach put power into the hands of people that didn't think they have it, and suddenly have are to think about how they use it. >> i think everybody has to think about aligning their lives with their moral beliefs. and political believes. but i this i the mistake is to frame this as either or. it makes for good t.v., and great models but the

process is messsy and complicated. and it is also divest and something else. and getting people to talk about where their money comes from, whether they dive vest or not, brings attention to the issue of oclimate change in a very healthy way. so professor, with do we go from here? do you see this movement, even one you find to be not that effective to expand in the coming years because it motivated large numbers of people. >> good question, that i don't know exactly how to answer this. my guess is yes, it will continue for a while, even though it is ineffect i, i just fear that it might distract us from the things we really should do. i agree with david as an individual, you may definitely want to pull your money out of fossil fuels it is a different story when you talk about what institutions like large universities should do. and there we have different solutions. >> effectiveness have joins us few california

as david david meyer, great to have you, thank you all for a good conversation, that brings us to the end of this edition of oinside story, thank you for being with us uh, now uh the program may be over, but the conversation continues. we especially want to hear what you think about the issue uhs raised on this or on any days show. log on to our facebook page, and post there, you can send us your thoughts on twitter, ones that take 140 characters anyway. ournd hale is a.j. inside story a.m. or oyou can reach me directly or ofollow me at ray swarez news. we will see you for the next inside story, in washington, i'm ray swarez.

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