Olivia Colman, the actress who played Queen Elizabeth in The Crown, has a new power role. The Academy-award winner stars as Oblivia Coalmine, a power-hungry Big Oil CEO, in a video of gratitude to the people of the UK for the billons of dollars they’ve invested in UK pensions, that have helped to fill her companies’ coffers and give it a bumper year of profits.
According to research, £88 billion of UK pension savers’ money is invested in fossil fuel companies. The activist campaign by Lucky Generals, created for Make My Money Matter, founded by filmmaker and activist Richard Curtis, hopes to raise public awareness of the damaging links between the UK pensions industry and the climate crisis. Its goal is to give savers the power to tell their pension schemes to stop investing in fossil fuel projects.
According to the UN’s research there is only a 14% chance of achieving the commitment countries made to stop the Earth’s average temperature rising 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. It predicts that the Earth will warm by 3C by the end of this century.
The video was directed by Raine Allen-Miller and produced by Somesuch.
The campaign is backed by new public polling by Opinium that indicates investments that fund fossil fuels are not just bad for the planet, they are also unpopular with savers. Just 19% of UK pension holders support their scheme investing in oil and gas; 66% support their pension investing in renewables.
Despite this, not one UK pension scheme has committed to stopping finance for fossil fuel expansion, despite clear guidance from the International Energy Agency that new oil and gas is incompatible with the 1.5-degree warming target of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The campaign is launching the ad ahead of COP28 in UAE and calling on all pension schemes to rule out investing in companies driving fossil fuel expansion.
Richard Curtis, co-founder of Make My Money Matter, says, “I’ve seen some dark, dystopian characters in my career, and that doesn’t even include Hugh Grant in Love Actually. But I think Oblivia Coalmine is right up there with the worst. At Make My Money Matter, we hope this sinister performance by Olivia Colman will highlight a more serious issue – that billions of pounds of our hard-earned pensions are driving the climate crisis. People across the UK want their money to help our planet, not harm it, and all our pension schemes must now pay attention and take immediate and urgent action.”
Danny Brooke-Taylor, founder of Lucky Generals, added, “The cruel irony is that while we all save for the future, the pension companies are investing in industries that are actively destroying it.”
