Country: United States

The big four US banks have reported fourth quarter results that reveal  just how difficult the economic environment is with hyperinflation, high interest rates and dire energy security. But they also show a failure by the banks to take advantage of a grinning gift horse.

Coal is the most damaging fossil fuel. So a sustainable bank would want to make sure it’s not funding coal extraction right? Well, US bank Citi is a massive funder of coal companies.

Citi is the second biggest funder of fossil fuels in the world. Citi lends billions of dollars to the fossil fuel industry destroying the planet. And it’s why Citi got caught out twice last week:

• Jane Fraser (Citi CEO) got a roasting from US Congress for continuing to bankroll Putin’s fossil fuel companies.

What an incredible result. A quarter of Credit Suisse (CS) shareholders are telling CS to clean up on climate by voting against management and demanding a fossil fuel funding phase out.

AGMs are meant to be where CEOs boast about their profits and give each other high fives. But this was something different. Three of the biggest fossil fuel funders in the world had their AGMs today – and shareholders are sending a clear message that they need to sort it out.

This is a guest post by the activists at Yale Endowment Justice Coalition, who confronted their professor and Citi board member, Ernesto Zedillo today:

This morning, we at the Yale Endowment Justice Coalition, confronted Professor Ernesto Zedillo about Citigroup’s fossil fuel holdings.

Frontline New York residents are taking over a section of Citi HQ in time for “Investor Day”, a day when hundreds of Citi’s super rich investors are getting together. They are raising objections to Citi’s massive investments into fossil fuel expansion and its huge exposure to the Russian economy, especially the energy sector

Citigroup is the second largest funder of the fossil fuel industry among all banks worldwide, the largest US backer of the coal industry, and it has the most invested in Russian fossil fuels of any US bank.

Citibank, the global fossil fuel industry’s second biggest funder, is responding to pressure from thousands of us and making moves on climate. It’s now ahead of other banks like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs on climate.

Goldman Sachs just released updated policies to try and tackle their investments in dirty fossil fuel projects. And they’re riddled with loopholes. They don’t outline anything to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and they’re massaging the numbers to make it look good (by using ‘intensity’ rather than ‘absolute’ targets).

It’s stunning. US banks and investors are responsible for roughly the same amount of emissions as all of Russia. It’s just one shocking finding from a report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Sierra Club studying the carbon footprint of US banks and asset managers.

President Biden has announced Jerome Powell for a second term as Chair of the Federal Reserve. And that’s bad news for the climate. The Federal Reserve is the US’s central bank.

Reaching net-zero by 2050 means no new investment in new coal mines, coal plants, or oil and gas fields. But Standard Chartered is piling cash into new coal plants and coal companies.