Winning NYC Pension Fund Divestment

350.org and Bill McKibben inspired a growing movement to get large, institutional investors worldwide to dump fossil fuels. The campaign was modelled on divestment from South African apartheid, which helped topple that racist regime.

We applied the same tactic to the fossil fuel industry: stigmatize them and interfere with their operations by taking away financing. Our goal is to chase away mainstream finance from the oil, gas and coal industries this decade.

We thought we could win in New York City – so we joined 350 and its local affiliates’ effort. After an intense, hard-hitting campaign, NYCC and our allies convinced the then-nearly $200 billion NYC pension funds to end fossil fuel investments. As a result, corporations like ExxonMobil have lost about $4 billion in city investments. NYC’s divestment is a globally significant victory in the fight against climate change that shook the fossil fuel industry.

We’re extraordinarily proud of our members’ and organizers’ work, which was a core part of the #DivestNY campaign. Then-Public Advocate Tish James and D.C. 37 paved the way for former Mayor de Blasio and Comptroller Stringer to listen to us — not Wall St. and the oil and gas companies.

Since our victory, the city has pushed other big institutional investors globally to divest from climate destruction, helping spark further large divestment actions.

We won through mobilizing bone-crushing multiracial political pressure to divest.

Sure, we had intelligent briefing papers on the financial impacts of the issue – and we did plenty of meetings with pension fund trustees to make

May 2017

150 person high-visibility teach-in inside of Trump Tower on divestment – an energetic, creative, in-your-face and very fun event inside the tower, which was social media gold and also generated media coverage.

May 2017

600 person town-hall style accountability forum which Public Advocate James and Comptroller Stringer attended - this public grilling was a real show of power, numbers and intensity.

1,500 person rally and march in reaction to Trump leaving the Paris Agreement - the day of Trump’s horrid announcement on Paris, we organized a fast reaction event that protested Trump and called on then-Comptroller Stringer to act, in particular on divestment. At this event, then-Public Advocate James, who cast a vote on the pension board, saw a large crowd chanting for divestment, and she came out in public for divestment for the first time on the spot. Driven almost entirely digitally that day, the turn-out was 1-2k. It was so energized it took over an hour for the crowd to disperse after we marched to City Hall.

June 2017

Direct action at the pension board meeting –along with 350.org, we organized a die-in that disrupted the pension funds quarterly meeting for a few minutes with a loud flood warning alarm as we held a banner and performed a die-in to dramatize the effects of climate change before marching out.

June 2017

Thousands Join #Sandy5 March on the 5th Anniversary of the Storm – the People’s Climate Mobilization, 350.org and NYCC led the organizing for this big march, which included thousands of people in a spirited rally followed by a large march over the Brooklyn Bridge. Over 100 NYCC members joined the march. NYCC staff spent much of the previous month building the large city-wide turnout from many groups and individual activists.

Oct. 2017

Public Advocate Tish James’ hearing – these events and our lobbying and relationships helped convince then-Public Advocate James to conduct a public hearing that, as planned, effectively turned into a rally for divestment, with a large overflow crowd and spirited pre-hearing rally. Indigenous leaders, experts and impacted community members testified.

Nov. 2017

Summer & Fall 2017 both the moral and financial case for divestment. In the end, though, it required an aggressive, hardhitting campaign. Then New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who made the crucial decision to divest the pension funds, deftly credited the intense pressure from activists for divestment. It was a lot of work!

In Summer and Fall 2017, we also handed out about 10,000 leaflets - not as sexy, of course, but handing out a ton of leaflets on the street and at events helped educate the broader public - as well as protest Comptroller Stringer at his events - we got up close and personal at his events several times with protesters, banners and leaflets.

While then-Public Advocate James and municipal workers union D.C. 37 were the first pension fund trustees to endorse divestment, Bill de Blasio and Scott Stringer deserve real credit for seizing the moment and moving forward.

Former Mayor de Blasio and former Comptroller Stringer pushed other large investors to divest, helping to spark further divestments, including by the City of London. NYC’s announcement made news globally. The announcement videos were viewed nearly half a million times on social media. As one energy industry analyst put it: “Divestment was once a little marginal. Now [after NYC’s action] it’s mainstream.”

Indeed, NYC’s divestment charged forward the worldwide movement. There are now tens of trillions of dollars worth of funds tracked by campaigners that are divested or in the process of divesting from either all or large parts of the fossil fuel industry.

Divestment has succeeded in stigmatizing the industry, taking away its social license to operate. It has also raised the industry’s cost of capital – its borrowing costs – by restricting the pool of available financial capital.

Coal divestment is the furthest advanced, and in the coal industry, entities have real trouble raising new finance, in part due to divestment by funds like New York City’s. There are initial signs that movement divestment pressure is starting to bite into the oil and gas companies.

Our goal is to chase mainstream finance – Wall Street’s biggest players – out of funding fossil fuels this decade.

Read more about the movement activism that led to this amazing win in NYC in Nexus Media: https://nexusmedianews.com/bright-lightsgreen-city-57203cb6b20e

Enacting Local Law 97 NYC’s “Green New Deal” Law

Buildings are responsible for about 70% of the city’s climate pollution – or about 35 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Thanks in large part to NYCC and our allies’ campaign, New York City passed world-first legislation to slash climate pollution from energy use in large buildings.

Local Law 97 is on track to create tens of thousands of jobs in design, renovation and construction this decade as buildings are required to slash pollution by over 40% by 2030 and over 80% by 2050, which will lead to large-scale upgrades to high energy efficiency. Buildings will upgrade everything from lighting to HVAC and building envelopes to sensors and controls.

Local Law 97 is the most important city-level climate and jobs law in the world. It could become the beginning of a Green New Deal in New York City.

The city’s deep-pocketed and powerful real estate lobby did its best to stop passage of the new law. They’d successfully stopped Mayor Bloomberg from passing an analogous law in 2010. But in 2017-2019, the multi-racial coalition and campaign that NYCC played the key role in overcame their opposition.

The key was to mobilize a strong, multi-racial constituency in a hard-hitting pressure campaign targeted the key decision-maker. We lobbied throughout the council and held dozens of events, pushing first Mayor de Blasio and then Council Speaker Corey Johnson.

• Trained and developed a network of constituents pushing their Councilmembers for this legislation. NYCC created, trained and coordinated constituents in over 20 Council districts who lobbied their Councilmembers, helping to counteract the real estate industry’s lobbying.

• Marched nearly 5,000 people on the 5th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy in October 2017 over the Brooklyn Bridge, with this legislation as a prime demand;

• Rallied about 3,000 people in September 2018 at the #RiseForClimate action, again with this legislation as the primary demand.

• Crafted a report and media attention to the problem by exposing high-polluting buildings like Trump Tower as among the city’s worst polluters.

• Held a 600-person town hall meeting in May of 2017 that focused on this issue (along with divestment)

• Relentlessly lobbyied almost every Councilmember. NYCC held face to face meetings with over 25 Councilmembers and even in offices where we didn’t get a meeting with the Councilmember themselves, we briefed staff and repeatedly followed up.

• Organized over 1,000 community leaders from across the City in every Council District to jointly write to Speaker Johnson, pushing him to introduce and move this bill.

• Held a “teach-in” in March 2017 inside Trump Tower in a public space to dramatize the building’s pollution and show the greedy real estate developers who oppose this legislation. Trump Tower tried to eject us, calling the NYPD and NYFD to try to get us out, but we used an obscure deal the city reached in the ‘80s with Trump to guarantee public access to a public terrace. In the end, we insisted on our legal right to the space, thumbing our noses at Trump’s minions while dramatizing the issue and generating media coverage.

• Developed vocal support from Councilmembers, including by getting 17 Councilmembers to sign a statement of support that pushed their colleagues and the Mayor to take bold action.

• Held many smaller events such as small press conferences and rallies on the steps of City Hall with Councilmembers pushing the Mayor and Council to action.

• Threatened a large, 200 person direct action in August 2018, during a heat wave, which would have attracted a lot of attention. This event, which we called off the afternoon before it took place, secured a private agreement that the Council would move the bill.

NYCC was the core of all of these efforts. While other organizations also mobilized, we spearheaded the political strategy, focus, event organizing and developed the largest turnouts and put in by far the most effort of any group to the campaign.

In our view, the key moment came in September of 2017, when then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he’d support an inadequate version of the policy we wanted. The various groups working on the issue had succeeded in getting the Mayor to endorse some of legislation. But what, exactly?

Over a period of 3 days prior to his announcement, the Mayor’s people tried to bum-rush groups into joining his event and providing supportive quotes for his new release, even though his staff weren’t telling anyone what the precise proposal was. While they refused to provide specifics, it became clear that the proposal was too weak.

By that point, various groups and interests had sorted themselves out: some decided to join the Mayor’s announcement event despite not knowing what his proposal was. Some groups simply stayed away and issued anodyne, noncommittal statements.

Meanwhile, NYCC and a few other groups we organized held a counter protest to the Mayor’s announcement. That took political courage (Or at least a willingness to speak some truth to power)

As the Mayor announced his proposal, it became very clear we’d made the right choice. De Blasio wasn’t calling for pollution cuts at the pace of the Paris climate agreement and was also proposing a regulatory scheme that would likely have raised rents on rent-regulated tenants, who could have been hit with large rent hikes under his proposal.

While it was a good thing that then-Mayor de Blasio signaled his desire to get some sort of deal done, his proposal was both too weak and unfair.

Our protest garnered media attention and reframed the debate: the movement wasn’t going to accept some mediocre proposal that represented incremental progress but did not cut pollution at the pace and speed of the Paris climate deal while potentially causing large rent hikes in many of the city’s one million rent-regulated apartments.

At a crucial moment, we showed we meant what we said. We weren’t willing to either support (or faintly praise) a proposal that was inadequate when we knew we could win what was needed.

Over the next year, we built an increasingly strong campaign. NYCC and our key allies at the Working Families Party and ALIGN continued to build support in the Council – and began to put pressure on the newly-elected Council’s new Speaker, Corey Johnson.

A year and much lobbying and many rallies and protests later, we won an agreement to move the bill. Costa Constantinides, the prime sponsor of the bill, and Speaker Johnson became our champions.

A year and much lobbying and many rallies and protests later, we won an agreement to move the bill.

From September 2018 through bill passage in April of 2019, they introduced the legislation that became Local Law 97, the Mayor came on board, and together we defeated the real estate lobby with a resounding 47 – 2 vote to pass the law. Local Law 97 requires pollution cuts that achieve 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 emissions reductions. The requirements are backed up by specific, enforceable and large penalties. The law’s requirements are on track to create tens of thousands of jobs this decade, which will especially help low-income and communities of color.

Local Law 97 is our proudest climate-focused achievement.

Now, with a new Mayor, Eric Adams, we’re fighting to ensure that the law is properly enforced and implemented. The fight goes on!