Citi: A $200bn problem for solving climate change

— Citi employees are confidentially speaking to FossilFreeCiti on Citi’s funding of fossil fuels. Join your colleagues now by emailing [email protected]. — 

New data shows that Citi is the biggest global funder of companies expanding oil, gas, and coal of any bank in the world. Citi has poured over $200 billion into fossil fuel companies since the Paris Agreement to limit planetary warming was signed in 2015 according to the latest annual report Banking on Climate Chaos by Rainforest Action Network and a coalition of NGOs. 

Did Citi miss the memo that the world doesn’t need new fossil fuel projects? Or that major fossil fuel companies are actively avoiding being part of the transition?

Pollution and rights

“We came from so far to tell Citi not to finance Petroperú” – Olivia Bisa, president of the autonomous territorial government of the Chapra Nation in Peru

Citi is behind some of the most egregious recent developments of fossil fuels. Here is just a taster of some:

• In Indonesia, Citi funds Adaro which is building an aluminium smelter plant in a conservation and migration area for endangered species such as the green turtles, hawksbill turtles and killer whales. 
• Citi is also turning a blind eye to violations of Indigenous rights – from the US, to the Amazon and Australia. In Peru it backs Petroperú which is involved in hundreds of oil spills and  threats to Indigenous leaders which oppose them. Olivia Bisa, president of the autonomous territorial government of the Chapra Nation in Peru, travelled to New York recently and met Citi to tell the bank its funding was threatening her life and her family’s: “We came from so far to tell Citi not to finance Petroperú, because they are impacting us, not only polluting our territories, but also they are causing fights and that we can have conflicts among us, among Indigenous nations, because Petroperú is using divisive tactics in the communities. Since 2022, where I denounced an oil spill in my territory, I have been criminalized. I’ve been threatened. I have received six lawsuits against me from Petroperú.”

Investor ire

Concern over Indigenous rights has seen one in four Citi shareholders support a shareholder resolution by investor nuns for three years. The message from investors is clear: “human rights violations are bad for business”.

Foul funder

A look at which companies Citi has been funding paints a stark picture of what this bank really cares about. Citi pumped $15 billion into ExxonMobil, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, which knew about climate change for decades but actively lobbied to stop action on it. Citi also funds Saudi Aramco – receiving over $6 billion since 2016. Because of this funding, Citi was named in a UN complaint last year over human rights abuses linked to climate change.

Transition plans

Citi knows it’s got a problem with its clients and its fossil fuel funding. Its own report released recently shows that 71% of its clients do have adequate transition plans. Yet there has been no policy announcement to drop clients which won’t transition away from oil, gas, and coal and no commitment that it will no longer back fossil fuel expansion. 

We have so much evidence that Citi is a dirty bank, the question is does it care enough about its investors, customers, staff and the planet to change direction?