Big win! Citibank, our main corporate target of the last 2+ years and the world’s second-largest funder of fossil fuels over the last decade, has significantly strengthened its 2030 climate targets.
Without getting too far into the weeds, Citi recently set a target of reducing its bond underwriting for the oil and gas sector by 29% (from 2020 levels) by 2030. Given that half of all bank financing for fossil fuels comes from bond underwriting as opposed to direct lending, this is an important step — Citi already had a matching target for its lending, so it has now publicly committed to symmetrically reducing its total oil and gas financing.
The fact that Citi did this even after Trump became president is a testament to the power that we have built over the last two years.
Bay Area Third Actors joined in a national campaign protesting directly at local Citi offices and at local rallies during the Summer of Heat, and pushing one of Citi’s largest clients, Costco, to break up with the bank in protest of its financing of fossil fuels. After tens of thousands of Costco members signed a petition demanding that Costco drop Citi, campaign organizers met with the Costco CEO and his team — and we strongly believe that our Costco campaign made it back to the very top executives at Citi.
