New York City (NYC) Comptroller Brad Lander has proposed the exclusion of prospective private markets investments in downstream and midstream fossil-fuel infrastructure, further expanding the pension funds’ divestment from such fuels. The proposal would see fossil fuels entirely excluded from the portfolios of three of the City’s public pension systems – NYC Employees’ Retirement System, NYC Teachers’ Retirement System, and the NYC Board of Education Retirement System. “Climate risk is financial risk, and we have a fiduciary duty to our beneficiaries to take that seriously as we make long-term investment decisions,” said Lander. “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.” NYC pension funds already started to exclude upstream fossil-fuel development from their private market investments last year. The additional step of excluding downstream and midstream fossil fuels makes them the first pension systems in the country known to do so. The three pension funds completed divestments from their public equities holdings in fossil-fuel reserve owners in 2022. The proposal was welcomed by a number of non-profits and NGOs, including US-based environmental non-profit Sierra Club. “[This] is another important milestone for the leadership of NYC’s pension systems, which have been setting an ambitious and necessary example for other pensions across the country to follow to confront the systemic threat of climate change,” said Loren Blackford, Acting Deputy Executive Director at Sierra Club. “With the impacts of climate change becoming ever-clearer, it’s never been more urgent to stop financing the industries that drive the crisis, which threatens our economy and so many people’s retirement security.”
ANNOUNCEMENT ⬇️
New plan stop to future investments by New York City public pension funds in midstream and downstream fossil fuel infrastructure.
This move is the first of its kind by a public pension fund in the US.
Grateful to @nychange, @FFF_NYC_, @ClimateFamsNYC, @350NYC,… pic.twitter.com/ZOTpVqXWGn
— Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander (@NYCComptroller) October 22, 2024
