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If
the advisory proposals come to a vote at bank shareholder
meetings this spring they would test investors' climate
commitments after setbacks in 2022, when calls for more dramatic
cuts in fossil fuel financing put forward by other climate
activists won slim support.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who filed the new
resolutions this year, said he aims to put up measures that have
a strong chance of winning majority support. Many investors
"want to see companies' net-zero commitments be made real,"
Lander said in an interview.
New York City's funds have been among the most aggressive in
pushing energy companies away from fossil fuels, but few other
big investors have embraced calls to divest from the sector amid
rising energy prices. Meanwhile, Republican officials in states
including Texas and Florida have sought to deny business to
certain financial companies over their treatment of fossil fuel
producers.
The new resolutions ask banks including Bank of America, Goldman
Sachs Group and JPMorgan to commit to reducing emissions in
their energy lending and underwriting. Lander cited plans
outlined last year by Citigroup for emissions across its energy
loan portfolio to drop 29% by 2030 from 2020.
Currently the other three banks have goals to reduce the
"emissions intensity" of their financing, a measure of emissions
relative to output that climate activists say does not go far
enough.
Representatives for JPMorgan, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs
declined to comment on the resolutions.
The banks' role in cutting global emissions is part of a debate
about their obligations as members of the Net Zero Banking
Alliance, a United Nations-backed effort to encourage
decarbonization and to reach net-zero emissions from banks'
lending and investment portfolios by 2050 to limit the rise of
global temperatures.
(Reporting by Ross Kerber; Additional reporting by Saeed Azhar;
Editing by David Gregorio)
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