More than £1.6billion of Greater Manchester's public pensions funds fossil fuels

More than £1.6bn of Greater Manchester's public pensions are funding fossil fuels, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. The Greater Manchester Pension Fund has been found to have the highest proportion of its investments tied up in fossil fuels nationally.

The data shared by UK Divest shows that, of the £29.3bn of the publicly-controlled pensions fund's assets which researchers were able to look at, around 7.5 per cent was invested in fossil fuels last year. This was a higher proportion than anywhere else in the country.

The organisation, which 'screened' three-quarters of assets, is calling on pension funds to stop investing in fossil fuels. It comes as 'virtually all' oil and gas companies are looking to expand their operations, according to global campaign group Insure Our Future.

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The Greater Manchester Pension Fund, which claims it is 'the biggest direct local government pensioner investor in renewable energy and energy efficiency', says it campaigns for all companies it has an interest in to 'clean up their act' and become carbon neutral. However, it said it will not 'jeopardise' hard-earned pensions which could end up coming at a cost to taxpayers in the city region.

The organisation, which is one of 86 funds that make up the local government pension scheme, is responsible for more than 370,000 pensions. A fund spokesperson said 20 per cent of its active equity holdings are less carbon intensive than the average pension fund.

The research by UK Divest analysed 75 per cent of the assets under the