Authors showing on the Edinburgh International Book Festival are demanding organisers finish their hyperlinks with “fossil fuel corporations” – and are threatening a boycott of subsequent yr’s occasion if there isn’t any motion.
More than 50 of the authors and occasion chairs participating on this yr’s festival – which will get beneath approach on Saturday – have mentioned that if primary sponsor Baillie Gifford doesn’t divest billions of money, organisers ought to discover different sponsors.
If this doesn’t occur, all authors ought to “decide to boycotting the festival in 2024,” the group mentioned. Leading writers together with Ali Smith, Zadie Smith and Gary Younge have signed the open letter to festival organisers, accusing funding administration agency Baillie Gifford of “making big income from international catastrophe.”
They added that the agency was in search of to “conceal behind esteemed cultural establishments, just like the Edinburgh Book Festival, as sanction for its continued operations.”
The letter comes within the wake of local weather activist Greta Thunberg pulling out of an look at this yr’s occasion, after accusing Baillie Gifford of “greenwashing.”
The funding administration agency rejected Thunberg’s claims that it invests “closely” in fossil fuels, saying simply 2% of its shoppers’ cash was invested within the sector.
However of their open letter to festival organisers, the authors and occasion chairs mentioned Baillie Gifford “has as much as £5bil (RM29.2bil) invested in fossil fuel companies.”
They acknowledged: “These companies fuel the local weather disaster. They’re making big income from international catastrophe, and conceal behind esteemed cultural establishments, just like the Edinburgh Book Festival, as sanction for its continued operations.”
The group mentioned they “stand in solidarity with all folks harmed by the local weather disaster, together with folks within the international south who’ve misplaced their houses, their livelihoods and been pressured emigrate.”
They additionally expressed their solidarity with “folks within the UK, together with these whose houses have been flooded, whose well being has been broken by air air pollution, and those that proceed to undergo the dire penalties of company greed and political negligence.”
Yara Rodrigues Fowler, writer of There Are More Things, mentioned: “This summer season has been outlined by international wildfires, flooding and excessive warmth: the local weather disaster is right here.”
“In the midst of local weather breakdown, Baillie Gifford is investing virtually £5bil into the reason for this disaster: corporations that revenue from the fossil fuel business.”
“Edinburgh International Book Festival permitting them to sponsor cultural occasions offers them a social licence to proceed funding the destruction of our solely residence.”
Mikaela Loach, writer of It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action To Transform Our World acknowledged: “Edinburgh International Book Festival would not burn books, so why are they OK with burning the planet?”
“Baillie Gifford’s whopping £5 billion in investments in companies earning money from the fossil fuel business is unjustifiable in a local weather disaster induced and exacerbated by these identical corporations who’ve invested extra into local weather denial and delay than they’ve into inexperienced power.”
“Edinburgh International Book Festival should stand by their ‘Climate Positive’ dedication and drop Baillie Gifford as a sponsor.” – dpa
