NYCC and BlackRock and Brad, oh my!

I would like to set the record straight.

A few of you have asked why New York Communities for Change are protesting me. I don’t like to criticize activist groups; I’ve done my share of direct action, after all. So, I’ve tried to be a good sport about their disruptions. But I would like to set the record straight:

Summary

1. Under my leadership, New York City’s pension funds have taken the boldest and most comprehensive action on climate of any U.S. public pension fund. By far.
   

2. We are living up to the commitments we announced this spring to evaluate whether our asset managers (including BlackRock) are aligned with our Net Zero Implementation Plan. As promised, we will make recommendations this fall to the pension fund trustees about moving money away from those who are not. The asset managers submitted their plans to us on June 30th, and we will bring our recommendations to the boards before Thanksgiving. This is the timeline we committed to in the spring — it has not changed.

3. New York Communities for Change are acting in a bad-faith, counterproductive way, with ad hominem attacks, disrupting the events of other nonprofits, unions, and community groups, including a rally for affordable housing, a picket line of striking workers, and a workforce development graduation for public housing residents (none of which were my events). We are living up to the commitments we made, but I have no interest in further dialogue with them about this.

Receipts

Climate change is among the most urgent issues we face, and we have an obligation to take aggressive, meaningful, and sustainable action.

Under my leadership, New York City’s pension funds have taken the boldest and most comprehensive actions on climate of any U.S. public pension fund. By far.

We’ve done that in ways that are consistent with our fiduciary duty to the City’s pension beneficiaries, so that it is consistent with our pension responsibilities and will survive legal challenges.

• In 2022, we completed the divestment of over $4 billion from fossil fuel reserve owners (e.g. Exxon, BP, etc) from the public equities portfolio of NYCERS, TRS, and BERS. This process was begun under the prior comptroller, after advocacy from a range of groups including NYCC, and voted on by the pension fund boards. But it was stuck and had not been completed when I took office in January 2022. I got it unstuck and completed it. It remains the largest divestment of public pension funds from fossil fuels (full list of companies we divested from here).

• In 2023, we extended this divestment to private equity investments in “upstream” fossil fuel infrastructure (e.g. drilling) – something no other U.S. public pension fund has done.

• In 2023, we adopted the boldest Net Zero Implementation Plan of any public pension fund in the country, with a target of being net-zero in financed emissions by 2040. Since then, we have been working diligently to implement it. In April 2025, we announced that we are one year ahead of schedule, having achieved a 37% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions since 2019 (details here).

• In consultation with climate finance activists, in 2024 we introduced shareholder resolutions at major U.S. and Canadian banks, pressuring them to move away from fossil fuels. This was actually the first thing that NYCC “demanded” of me when I came into office; they were angry that the prior comptroller had refused to do it. They quickly lost interest, but we continued working with other activists, and as a result J.P. Morgan Chase and Citibank agreed to begin disclosing their fossil-fuel to clean energy finance ratio. Climate finance activists called this a big win.

• We are currently engaged in similar pressure on utility companies, who are responsible for a large share of our financed emissions.

• We successfully beat back a lawsuit challenging our fossil-fuel divestment, affirming that our decarbonization work is consistent with our fiduciary duty and on solid legal ground, a critical element of climate leadership.

• We have taken leadership in working together with other pension funds and asset owners around the world, knowing that broad action will be necessary to address systemic risks. We joined the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance (at a time when many investors are abandoning climate coalitions), and we have regularly led action with other investors to advance shared goals. In September, I was the one investor invited by Congressional Democrats to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on how we preserve responsible investment tools in the face of MAGA attacks.

• As part of our Net Zero Implementation Plan, we have invested over $15 billion in solar, wind, and renewable energy, and other climate solutions. This is an important part of climate transition.

• In addition to our climate finance leadership as investment advisor to the City’s pension funds, we have taken extensive action on climate using a wide array of other tools during my tenure: appointing the first Chief Climate Officer; launching the NYC Climate Dashboard; creating Public Solar NYC; convening the coalition that brought successful lawsuits to implement congestion pricing when it was put on pause; and issuing policy reports on strengthening Local Law 97 enforcement, addressing the gap in the City’s cooling centers, implementing overdue coastal resiliency projects, investing in community-based social resilience and environmental justice, improving preparedness for flash flooding, and many more.

Can we do more to confront the climate emergency? Of course. Everyone can and should. But I don’t think you’ll find a public official, and certainly not a city or state financial official, who has worked harder on it over the past 4 years.

We are living up to the commitments we announced last fall and this spring to take strong next steps: to exclude midstream/downstream fossil fuel infrastructure, and to hold our asset managers (including BlackRock) accountable for net zero implementation. As promised, this will include making recommendations this fall to the pension fund trustees to move money away from asset managers who are not aligned.

Last fall and this spring, alongside a broad coalition of climate groups, we announced a series of next steps, as part of our Net Zero Implementation Plan. We are living up to those commitments.

• Midstream/downstream infrastructure: In October 2024, I announced my support for extending our exclusion of investments in private equity from “upstream” fossil fuel infrastructure (e.g. drilling and exploration) to “midstream” (e.g. pipelines, LNG terminals) and “downstream” (e.g. refineries, transportation assets). This policy – which would be the first of its kind in the country (no other fund has yet even excluded “upstream” infrastructure, as we have – was announced alongside a diverse group of climate community leaders – including New York Communities for Change, Fridays For Future NYC, Climate Families NYC, 350 NYC, and the Sierra Club.

Announcing our midstream/downstream infrastructure policy in October 2024, alongside New York Communities for Change, Fridays For Future NYC, Climate Families NYC, 350 NYC, and the Sierra Club.

We developed the policy and proposed it formally to the pension fund boards for a vote in June of 2025. I made clear I would vote for it, and urged the other trustees to do so as well. I am just one trustee on those boards; for any proposal to pass, representatives of the labor unions (including DC37, UFT, Teamsters 237and the Transport Workers Union) must support it. So far, no union is supporting this proposal. As a result, the pension fund boards voted to table it. Advocates including NYCC indicated they would lobby the other trustees to support the proposals in order to secure the votes to adopt them. So far, I am not aware of any advocacy they have done with labor trustees. None of the labor trustees have indicated they are prepared to vote for the proposal; I will be thrilled to call a vote on the plan as soon as they indicate that they are.

• Asset managers (incl. BlackRock): As part of our Net Zero Implementation Plan, we had previously announced that we would require all of our public markets asset managers (of which Blackrock is the largest, but we have 49 in total) to submit decarbonization plans to us by June 30, 2025. In April 2025 we went further in our commitment to Holding Asset Managers Accountable for Net Zero Implementation, specifying what we expected to see in their plans. We committed that we would review and evaluate those plans, and that this fall, we will announce the results. We will recommend to the pension fund boards which ones are aligned with our expectations, and which ones are not – and we will propose to the boards that we move money away from those managers who are not aligned.
  
  We are conducting those reviews now; in some cases, we have sought additional information and details. Activists can pick targets and make demands as part of a campaign. Investors have a legal responsibility to conduct thorough research and act in a manner consistent with their fiduciary duty. If my office decides to recommend that the board take action on BlackRock or other managers, it must be because the managers have failed to meet the clear climate expectations that the boards have set for our asset managers, consistent with our fiduciary duty. We will be, as we committed, announcing the results and proposing action to the boards this fall.

New York Communities for Change are acting in a bad-faith, counterproductive way, with ad hominem attacks, disrupting the events of other nonprofits, unions, and community groups, including a rally for affordable housing, a picket line of striking workers, and a workforce development graduation for public housing residents (none of which were my events). We are living up to the commitments we made, but I have no interest in further dialogue with them about this.

Over the last four years, we have worked in partnership with many climate finance groups, including Sierra Club, Stand.earth, 350NYC, Fridays for Future, Climate Families NYC, Americans for Financial Reform, etc. They and others have consistently praised our leadership and worked with us in good faith to figure out next steps.

In contrast, NYCC has decided to engage in a long-standing campaign of public disruption. Last week, they disrupted a rally for affordable housing. The week before, they disrupted the graduation of Green City Force, a wonderful workforce development nonprofit, where about 50 young people, mostly residents of public housing, were celebrating completion of a six-month workforce development program. In the spring, they disrupted an RWDSU union picket line outside of REI that I had joined in solidarity. To be clear: these were not “my” events. In each case, they took attention away from other advocates’ causes – affordable housing, workers rights, green workforce development.

I believe their actions are counterproductive to the cause of climate finance. I’ve had several Democratic State Treasurers and Comptrollers, whose funds have not yet divested from fossil fuel companies, reacting to NYCC protests by saying to me: “Why would I take the big step of divestment, when activists will just protest me even more?” It is hard for me to fathom, with Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans catastrophically rolling back climate action, and many other investors retreating, how it makes sense that I am a priority target.

So, I felt it was important to publicly detail the work my office has done over the past four years, and is committed to do before the end of my term. NYCC can keep disrupting the events I attend, distracting from the good causes of other organizers. I’ll try to be good-natured, live up to my word, be as transparent as I can, and keep moving forward.