Dear members of the city council,

Climate change is accelerating. We are witnessing the increasing impacts of a warming planet more and more consistently; in this last year alone our country experienced record-breaking heat, droughts, fires, and hurricanes, which impacted hundreds of thousands of people and cost our country hundreds of billions of dollars. Experts agree that global warming caused by humans burning fossil fuels will continue to accelerate and intensify these tragic climate disasters. Experts also agree that we must stop the flow of carbon emissions into our atmosphere.  One way to influence a change is to stop the money pipeline to fossil fuel companies.  Entities like cities that control large amounts of investments have an excellent lever to pull to shift our carbon emissions into reverse.

We call on San Mateo City Council to immediately freeze any new investment in fossil-fuel companies, and to divest within two years from direct ownership and from any commingled funds that include fossil-fuel public equities and corporate bonds. We believe such action on behalf of the city of San Mateo will not only be a sound decision for our city's financial portfolio, but also for the wellbeing of its current and future residents, who deserve the opportunity to live with a future not defined by climate chaos.

For the good of our residents and our nation, and to preserve the quality of life for this and future generations worldwide, we call upon you to join a growing movement of cities around the country that are committed to preventing a more extreme climate by moving city funds beyond fossil fuels.

Signed,

The residents of the city of San Mateo