ABSTRACT
The divestment campaign seeks to weaken the fossil fuel industry's grip on power through continuous symbolic and public victories. The Oxford study notes that the fossil fuel campaign has entered its second wave in the relatively short time since its inception in 2010: colleges, universities, cities, counties, religious institutions, and foundations have committed to divesting. To understand mobilization for divestment, it is important to remember that the targets of divestment are institutions with funds. The divestment campaign appears to have successfully exploited the opportunities that tightly knit student communities on campuses present for activism, an observation familiar to scholars of social movements. The challenge for divestment activists is, similar to Keystone XL, to connect the nascent removal of the social license of the fossil fuel industry to actual policy change. They may contribute momentum to the divestment campaign, but none of them is large enough to influence the valuation of fossil fuel companies.
