A petition has been launched calling for the council to move away from any investment in fossil fuels.

The document urges Haringey council to move its financial holdings and those of its pension fund away from any business which is involved in the exploration or production of coal and tar sands within two years.

It also calls for an immediate freeze on any new investment in fossil fuel companies.

The petition was started by activist Quentin Given of Sustainable Haringey.

He said: “Climate change is the gravest threat to our future and to the future of the natural world.

“We cannot burn more than a fifth of existing fossil fuel reserves and stay within safe limits, so these fuels are increasingly being seen as being unburnable and therefore investment in these fuels is becoming financially risky as well as morally indefensible.

“Coal and tar sands are the worst sources of carbon dioxide that causes climate change, and so the most risky financially.”

There is a growing movement to divest from coal and tar sands supported by Ban Ki-Moon, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, the Church of England, Oxford City Council and Oxford and Edinburgh Universities.

Haringey council has been approached for comment.