John,

Today we announced a significant next step in three of the New York City public pension funds’ plan to decarbonize our portfolio:

I support the exclusion of all midstream and downstream fossil fuel infrastructure from future private markets investments of New York City’s public pension funds!

In other words, we are exploring a policy that will stop future investments in projects like pipelines, distribution facilities and natural gas terminals. You can watch our full announcement here.

To be sure, we’ll have some work to do to develop this proposal and present it to the Boards. Climate risk is financial risk and this announcement was made with the commitment to maintaining strong returns for the future health of our long-term investments.

I was proud to stand with many advocates, pension fund beneficiaries, grassroots climate groups, and New Yorkers who care deeply about our planet and retirement security to make this announcement.

Thanks to New York Communities for Change, Fridays for Future, Climate Families NYC, 350, Sierra Club, and many others.

It’s a sacred responsibility of the Comptroller’s Office to make sure we earn a maximum risk-adjusted return for our nearly 800,000 current and future retirees who make NYC great.

And we can achieve this while being thoughtful and responsible about how we invest those dollars for the long term. It is incumbent on investors to understand the systemic risk that climate change presents to our planet and our portfolios.

Today’s announcement builds upon our broader climate action and our Net Zero Implementation Plan. Here are some more climate wins we’ve achieved under my office’s leadership.

• Completed divestment from publicly traded fossil fuel reserve owners.
  
  

• Established an exclusion policy in upstream fossil fuels in private markets.
  
  

• Led shareholder campaigns that persuaded JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, and Royal Bank of Canada to disclose the ratio of their green vs. fossil fuel financing, with the goal of making this a sector-wide standard that supports the energy transition on a Paris-aligned timeline.
  
  
• Led shareholder engagement with utilities (a leading source of Scope 1 and 2 emissions in our portfolio) to decrease their carbon footprint in line with the Paris Accords.
  
  
• Adopted an ambitious net-zero plan, which includes expectations that all of the funds’ public markets investment managers will have net-zero plans in place by 2025, and private market investment managers by 2026.
  
  
• Increased investments in renewable energy and climate solutions to over $11 billion.

Just ask any New Yorker who’s weathered extreme rainfall and blistering summers in recent memory: The impacts of the climate crisis are playing out in real time.

Excluding pipelines and LNG terminals from future investments will help mitigate the systemic risks that climate change poses to the global economy and to New York City’s public pension funds.

Learn more about the Office of the Comptroller’s work confronting the climate crisis.

Thanks,

Brad

Office of the New York City Comptroller

Our mailing address is:
Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander
1 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007
United States

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