Citi has agreed to disclose key information after pressure from the NYC Comptroller and New York pension funds
March 20, 2024
This week, the New York City Comptroller’s office withdrew its Citi shareholder resolution given the bank’s commitment to disclose energy supply financing ratios, as reported by the Financial Times.
According to Bloomberg NEF which has pioneered energy ratio data, Citi has one of the worst clean to dirty energy ratios in the world at 0.58:1, meaning for every $1 financing fossil fuels only 58 cents is going into low carbon energy. The International Energy Agency has affirmed that banks’ ratios must be 4:1 by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
Through negotiations, Citi has agreed to disclose information on how much low carbon energy it finances in comparison to oil, gas and coal energy, after pressure from the NYC Comptroller and New York pension funds. Citi still faces a resolution on Indigenous rights, which for 2 years, has attracted over 30% of investor support.
Hannah Saggau, a climate finance campaigner with Stand.Earth, said:
“Citi’s move to disclose its energy financing ratios, thanks to pressure from the NYC Comptroller, shows they’re reading the writing on the wall and know their ratio of dirty to clean energy financing is not fit for the times. There are fundamental risks to investing in oil, gas and coal while climate change threatens economic stability for the hard-working members of their pension plans.
“This should encourage other shareholders to challenge Citi on its environmentally racist support of fossil fuels by rapidly phasing out of oil, gas and coal funding and ramping up its financing of sustainable power. Time for investors to flex and send a message that laggard banks need to change their energy financing approach.”
“We expect that this settlement will give a boost to votes at the four remaining banks where the resolution is going forward, notorious fossil banks RBC, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.”
This a testimony submitted by Hannah Saggau, Stand.earth Senior Climate Finance Campaigner, to the New York City Banking Commission to vote against major fossil fuel financing banks as Designated Banks.
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