Wellcome Trust increases investment in fossil fuels despite calls to divest

The UK medical research charity the Wellcome Trust has ignored calls to stop investing in fossil fuels and has instead increased its portfolio of shares in coal, oil, and gas during 2015, an analysis has found.

Campaigners have called the trust’s action “ridiculous” and “on the wrong side of history.”

In June this year health professionals were invited to sign an online letter calling for the trust, which has an investment portfolio of £18bn (€25bn; $28bn), to end its investment in fossil fuel companies because of the serious effect that their businesses had on “human and planetary health.”1 2

More than 1000 doctors and other health professionals have now signed the letter, which was coordinated by the health campaigning organisations MedAct and the Climate and Health …