Guardian petition for fossil fuel divestment receives 60,000 signatures

In less than 24 hours, more than 60,000 readers have joined a campaign on the Guardian’s website asking the world’s largest charitable foundations – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – to divest their endowments from fossil fuels.

It was, in the words of one reader, “a big day in civic journalism”. The Guardian’s website and front page have never looked quite like it, as oil dripped down where the news would normally be.

To the thousands of you who have signed our petition so far, we thank you. You have joined a movement that is creating the fastest growing divestment campaign in history.

As I write, student campaigners in Oxford, frustrated by the university yesterday postponing their divestment decision, are staging a sit-in. What’s more, the university’s former director of finance, John Clements, joined in. On the same day, Jeremy Leggett, founder of charity Solar Aid and energy company Solarcentury, pledged to give Oxford University back his degree if they don’t commit to divest.

Student divestment campaigners are making themselves heard on an increasing number of campuses around the UK, with Glasgow university becoming the first in Europe to divest last October. The campaigners co-ordinating the student movement are crowd-funding so they can hire someone to support the growing movement. They have already hit their initial £15,000 target and have now increased it to £17,000.

Over the coming weeks and months, we’re going on a journey and we’d like you to come with us. This blog will be a space for debate, where we will share the best stories from the movement and the best comment from the critics. We’ll share with you the highs and the lows from inside campaign HQ and we’ll ask you to get involved – with plenty of fun along the way.

Got a question? We’ve tried to answer as many as we can here, but please tell us what you would like to know in the comments below.

Are we missing out on something? If you have an idea to contribute to this blog or campaign or if your organisation would like to get more involved, we’d love to hear from you. Email us at keep.it@theguardian.com.