“We’re going to see this ripple out in the coming months. There really are no more excuses for any financial institution to stay invested in fossil fuels,” said Richard Brooks, climate finance director at Stand.earth, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group. “The financial arguments have never been stronger, with declining demand for oil, gas and coal. The social acceptability has now shifted as well.”

Harvard’s decision is a “key turning point,” he said, and more divestitures will be announced in advance of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP26, which begins Nov. 1.

U.S. academia is falling in line with a global movement that includes 1,337 institutions valued at more than $14 trillion, according to the climate change campaign Fossil Free. Churches, philanthropies, pensions, and even sovereign funds such as Ireland’s strategic development fund have adopted a strategy to starve greenhouse gas emitters of capital and shift investments into clean sectors.

In the U.S., the 20 largest college and university endowments total more than $322 billion and have been a key target of climate activists. With Harvard’s move, about 58 percent of those endowment dollars have quit or partially quit fossil fuels, according to a POLITICO analysis of preliminary fiscal year 2020 data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Ten of those 20 have fully or partially divested from fossil fuels, meaning the school might have divested from only coal companies, for instance. Ten have not divested at all.

“Harvard’s decision has lowered the risk for other institutions to move forward with divestment,” Tom Sanzillo, the former deputy comptroller of New York State, told reporters earlier this month.

Divestment activists now have turned their focus to Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Boston College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, none of which have fully abandoned fossil fuels.

Yale has formed a committee to examine the issue and has taken steps toward partial divestment, as has Princeton. The University of Pennsylvania in April said divestment wasn’t part of its plan to go net-zero by 2050.

Yale’s ethical investment principles “provide a framework to encourage fossil fuel producers to adopt more sustainable practices and to make ineligible for investment those who do not,” Yale spokesperson Karen Peart said. A number are ineligible, she said. As of April, an estimated 2.6 percent of the university’s $31 billion endowment was invested in fossil fuels, a number that Peart said would decline over time.

In the heart of coal country, fossil fuel holdings account for only about 5 percent of Penn State’s more than $3.3 billion endowment and the school has no plans to make additional investments, chief investment officer Joe Cullen said.

“An important point in this conversation is that fossil fuels as a category is not concentrated in only energy companies,” Cullen said, citing airlines, utilities, transportation and technology companies as examples. “Divesting from fossil fuel holdings will not have an impact if other companies are not held to sustainable practices.”

Proponents of divestment at Boston College and the University of Wisconsin have filed formal complaints to state authorities similar to one filed by Harvard organizers. They argue that nonprofits need to invest in line with their mission.

The Wisconsin complaint was dismissed Sept. 7, with the state Department of Financial Institutions citing a lack of enforcement power even as it recognized that groups need to protect against climate-related financial risks.

Ted Hamilton, co-founder of the non-profit Climate Defense Project, a group of lawyers that has filed complaints on behalf of climate activists at Wisconsin, Harvard and Boston College, said he hopes to file more of them this fall.

The decision to divest doesn’t come easy. Harvard’s move followed a massive protest at a 2019 football game and a string of legal efforts. Bacow in the past has said the endowment should not be used toward political ends.

Despite shifting public opinion and mounting evidence that environmental metrics can contribute to investment returns, some institutions are standing pat. Boston College students voted overwhelmingly in favor of divestment at the Jesuit institution in 2019, and the Vatican even urged Catholics to stop their fossil fuel investments. At Wisconsin, the faculty senate in March called on the school to divest from fossil fuels.

Boston College is “opposed to divestment on the grounds that it is not an effective means of addressing climate change,” spokesperson Jack Dunn said.

John Lucas, a spokesperson for UW-Madison, said the school has no influence over the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association, which decides investments.

A steady accumulation of schools over the past decade have taken the plunge to divest, starting with Maine’s Unity College in 2012. The list now includes Georgetown University, Cornell University, the University of California, Syracuse University and Brown University.

Brooks hopes Harvard will be the next New York City. After Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018 said the city would divest its pension fund of fossil fuel companies, cities around the world followed suit. In June, Maine became the first state to divest its $16.5 billion state pension fund from fossil fuel companies via legislation.

Investment and sustainability decisions, especially at institutions of higher education, are becoming more important financial choices in another way, too.

“Students are increasingly considering a university’s record on sustainability when they choose a school to attend,” said Kimberly Williams, who works in George Washington University’s Office of Sustainability. “Universities are in competition with one another to lead the way on addressing sustainability challenges.”