The fossil fuel divestment movement got a major boost on Thursday when the Norwegian government announced it is considering selling off $35 billion in oil and gas stocks. Norway would become by far the largest entity to join the divestment movement. Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund controls about 1.5 percent of all global stocks.
Meanwhile, there has been a major oil leak from the Keystone 1 pipeline in South Dakota. The pipeline’s operator, TransCanada, says 210,000 gallons of oil leaked on Thursday near the town of Amherst. It is the largest Keystone spill to date. The leak comes just days before authorities in Nebraska are scheduled to make a key ruling that could decide the fate of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Environmental and indigenous groups have long warned about the dangers of pipeline leaks. This is Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Tom Goldtooth: “We just caught wind yesterday of the Keystone 1 spill. It’s something that we’ve been saying all along, as Native, as indigenous peoples, that every pipeline is going to spill, is going to leak.”
