Big Oil blues

The campaign to persuade the Wellcome Trust to divest from fossil fuels is hitting the wrong target.

Over the next 12 months The Guardian newpaper’s Keep it in the Ground campaign will step up its efforts to name and shame universities, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation into giving up their investments in fossil fuel companies. The campaign is attracting cross-disciplinary support, with signatories including the economist Thomas Picketty and the editors of The Lancet and the BMJ. Prince Charles is also thought to be supportive.

So far, Wellcome director Jeremy Farrar has engaged with his critics. He has looked for common ground with the campaign, for example on the scientific consensus about what needs to be done to slow down dangerous global warming. But on the critical question of divestment, Farrar is declining to change the trust’s position.