NYC Comptroller: Fight Climate Change, Don’t Finance It.

TLDR:

• New York City pension funds have divested from oil, gas, and coal companies.
• Comptroller Brad Lander should shift city’s business away from BlackRock, a major fossil fuel investor.

In the article “Opinion: NYC Comptroller Should Fight Climate Change, Not Finance It,” Margaret Perkins and Pete Sikora discuss the need for NYC Comptroller Brad Lander to align the city’s massive business with cleaner companies to fight climate change.

The authors highlight the fact that while the city’s pension funds have divested from fossil fuel companies, they still do significant business with BlackRock, a major investor in the fossil fuel industry. They emphasize the importance of Comptroller Lander leveraging the city’s financial power to push for climate-friendly investments.

Perkins and Sikora also point out that blue cities and states have substantial pension fund money that can influence Wall Street firms like BlackRock. They stress the urgency of taking concrete actions to shift investments away from dirty money managers and towards cleaner companies to mitigate the impact of climate change on low-income communities.