Glen Innes Severn Council has decided not to change its policy to favouring green investments if they give as a good a return as ones involving coal and oil.
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The councillors rejected a recommendation that the current policy be changed so that “preference will be given to investing funds with financial institutions that do not invest in, or finance, the fossil fuel industry.”
Both the mayor and the deputy mayor wanted a new , greener policy but other councillors balked.
Some feared green projects might be riskier financially and some were sceptical of the whole idea.
Former mayor Colin Price was scathing against moving against coal and oil as a form of fuel: “I notice that no councillor is going to walk out of this meeting and go home on a horse", he said.
On the proposal to go greener, he said: “I just see it as a precedent for the intrusion of politics into what should be financial decisions.”
He said that each wind tower gets a subsidy of three quarters of a million dollars.
Cr Jeff Smith said: “I can’t vote for this”.
It left Mayor Steve Toms and Deputy-mayor Carol Sparks together in an unusual minority of two. Cr. Sparks said: “Investing in clean energy is now a worldwide need.”.
The proposal had been to put council money into “Ecologically Sustainable Development” investments if the “rate of interest is equivalent to other similar investments that may be on offer to Council at the time of investment”.
The council has about $17 million to invest and most of it goes to banks in return for interest (usually around 2.5 per cent).
In other words, the proposal was basically that the council would not invest with banks that were heavy into oil and coal companies if “greener” banks offered the same return.
The proposal was voted down six votes against to two for, with one member absent.