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Resolution in Support of Divestment from Fossil Fuel Companies WHEREAS the climate crisis, induced by the fossil fuel industry, is a severe threat to current and future generations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report found that anthropogenic global warming promoted heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires that altered ecosystems, disrupted food production and water supplies, damaged infrastructure and settlements, and increased morbidity and mortality; and WHEREAS in order to mitigate the climate crisis a relentless drive to improve energy efficiency is causing global energy consumption overall to decelerate and shift to renewable energy. Global renewable electricity capacity is forecast to expand by 43% by 2022. WHEREAS, “Measuring fossil fuel costs”, a 2015 study by University of Cambridge Judge Business School, reported on 20 fossil fuel companies and found that, while highly profitable, the externalized economic cost to society was also large. The report spans the period 2008–2012 and notes that: "for all companies and all years, the economic cost to society of their CO2 emissions was greater than their after‐tax profit, with the single exception of ExxonMobil in 2008; and WHEREAS after assessing the degree of externalized, climate-change costs by the fossil fuel industry and the proportion of those costs covered by the insurance industry, the president of the Reinsurance Association of America stated, “it is clear that global warming could bankrupt the industry”; and WHEREAS a 2013 study by HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services institutions in the world, found that between 40% and 60% of the market value of BP, Royal Dutch Shell and other European fossil fuel companies could be wiped out because of stranded assets caused by carbon emission regulation; and WHEREAS, scientists can now determine to what extent climate change made a particular event such as a hurricane, wildfires, or drought more likely or more extreme. This advance in attributing climate change to specific actors enhances the potential for successful of damage suites against fossil fuel companies; and WHEREAS, the value of stock in fossil fuel companies is severely jeopardized by improved energy efficiency, transition to renewable energy sources, the magnitude of externalized costs, the potential for stranded assets, and the increasing likelihood of large payouts for legal damages; and WHEREAS, after two years of studying these and other deleterious factors and in fulfillment of their fiduciary responsibility, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer and other trustees of the City’s $189 Billion pension funds have announced a goal to divest New York City funds from fossil fuel reserve owners within five years; and WHEREAS, the North Carolina State Treasurer, as the fiduciary of over 20 funds worth about 100 billion dollars, invests these funds for the benefit of residents of North Carolina; and WHEREAS, the North Carolina State Treasurer's fiduciary responsibility, in accordance with NC General Statutes § 36E-3, requires consideration of expected total return from income and the appreciation of investments and to preserve capital; and WHEREAS, investments in fossil fuel companies are incompatible with the NC State Treasurer's fiduciary responsibility to the citizens of North Carolina.