A Historic Win for NYC Climate Activists Shows the Impact of Direct Action
Ryan Krugman explores how direct action and escalation secured the country’s first divestment of public pension funds from midstream and downstream fossil fuel infrastructure.
A scene from the Oct. 22 press conference. (Photo: Planet Over Profit)
In a historic statement on October 22, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander announced support for a plan to divest the city’s pension funds from downstream and midstream fossil fuel infrastructure. Paired with previous divestments in upstream infrastructure and public holdings in fossil fuels, this plan would make NYC the first major U.S. city to fully divest major public pension funds from fossil fuel infrastructure.
Lander has been showered with praise for this decision. But where is the praise for the activists who helped make it happen through direct action?
Disruption and Embarrassment
For almost three years, a coalition of climate activist groups in NYC including New York Communities for Change, Fridays for Future NYC, and Climate Families NYC have been meeting with the comptroller's office to demand this divestment. Planet Over Profit, a youth-led direct action group, joined this past summer when the coalition decided to escalate.
Activists like Teddy, a co-founder of Planet Over Profit (POP), say these initial efforts were met with a lack of urgency from the Comptroller. “[Lander] was full of deflection,” Teddy recalls, “basically saying he was not allowed to divest pension funds.” However, in 2022 the city finalized a divestment of $4 billion in public equity fossil fuel holdings, and in 2023, Lander helped divest pension funds from upstream fossil fuel infrastructure. Upstream fossil fuel infrastructure encompasses everything in the earliest stage of the fossil fuel supply chain, from exploration to extraction.
Downstream and midstream infrastructure, which includes pipelines and liquified natural gas terminals, remained in the portfolio. In addition, despite divesting public holdings, the plans still allowed for investment in private equity firms that play a key role in driving the fossil fuel industry through their financing interests.
In response to these loopholes and Lander’s deflections, the coalition began their direct action campaign.
On September 9, members of POP, dressed in business attire, managed to sneak past security guards onto the floor of the Council of Institutional Investors Fall Conference. As Lander stepped onto stage to give his remarks, so too did the members of POP:
BREAKING: We just disrupted Brad Lander, NYC's Comptroller & mayoral candidate. Lander has ignored NYCers for years now, refusing to divest our billions in city pension funds from dirty asset managers funding new fossil fuels.
— Planet Over Profit (@pop4climate) September 9, 2024
Time's up, Brad. We're taking direct action now. pic.twitter.com/kqS67UQ4vd
On stage, Teddy can be seen yelling, “It’s time for Brad Lander to move the City’s pension funds away from dirty asset managers and private equity.” Other protestors got directly in Lander’s face to intimidate and embarrass him in front of his counterparts.
“It’s clear our action made a real impression on Lander,” argues Teddy. “After the fact, he responded directly to our co-founder, who had her collarbone fractured by security at this direct action. As a politician who wants to be seen as driving progress, particularly amongst his counterparts in city finance in that room, he knew that this disruption posed a threat to his good reputation.”
POP also recognizes that the success of the direct action campaign was only made possible by the years of activism led by New York Communities for Change, Fridays for Future, and Climate Families NYC who laid the groundwork for this divestment decision.
The Comptroller’s office did not respond to a request from Weave News for comment on how the direct action campaign may have affected Lander’s decision.
“A meaningful and tangible step”
A month later, on October 7, POP attempted another disruption at a similar event at the Marriott Marquis Hotel but were unable to get through security.
Then, two weeks later, the divestment plan was made public. Teddy recalls feeling “thrilled and floored in equal measure” upon hearing the news. “As a climate activist up against a multi-trillion-dollar industry, the odds never seem to be in our favor,” he admits. “Fighting climate change is an uphill battle, so this win feels incredible. It's a meaningful and tangible step towards decarbonization – which can be directly traced to the work of our coalition.”
After three years of meeting with the comptroller and a short direct action campaign aimed at holding Lander responsible, the activists won a historic victory for the climate justice movement.
Direct action in the climate justice movement
From the civil rights movement to anti-war protests, history has shown that direct action works. POP, other NYC climate activists, and climate activists around the world have made it clear that non-violent direct action (NVDA) has a place in the climate movement as well.
On October 22, the same day Lander’s decision was made public, a group of climate activists from Last Generation Canada and the Antigone Collective shut down the Jacques Cartier bridge in Montreal. The activists halted traffic below to make two simple demands: establish a national emergency management agency in Canada, and make the Canadian government sign the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Three people were arrested at this action, including the two who scaled the bridge, Jacob Pirro and Olivier Huard, and the police liaison, Michèle Lavoie. Pirro and Lavoie were later released. Huard was granted bail on Thursday following a five-day hunger strike. The treatment of these activists is leading to increasing fears among climate justice groups that repressive and punitive policing tactics will be increasingly used to silence protestors.
While Huard and Pirro were behind bars over the weekend, another direct action protest was underway. Over 1000 protestors, led by Code Rouge - Rood, blocked the entrance to TotalEnergies in Feluy and Antwerp, Belgium. TotalEnergies is a petroleum company responsible for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). The pipeline will run through Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, generating an estimated 34.3 million tons of CO2 per year, more than all three countries emit combined. Construction of the EACOP began last April and is expected to displace 100,000 people. Code Rouge - Rood have been performing civil disobedience campaigns against TotalEnergies for years and say they will continue until their demands are met.
Given POP’s recent success and the growing use of NVDA in climate justice protests across the world, Teddy sees NVDA as an essential tool whose impact will only continue to grow:
“NVDA has always been a part of the climate movement, whether that's been unsanctioned disruptive marches, shutting down bridges or rappelling down dams. Event disruptions in particular have become hugely popular as a form of NVDA, though, because they garner massive attention and give activists the opportunity to directly confront the people most responsible for the crises we face. If people in power do not act with the urgency this crisis requires, I predict that non-violent tactics will only escalate and become more frequent – just like climate disasters will.”
Activists participate in the ‘Summer of Heat’ campaign. (Photo: Planet Over Profit)
POP has been utilizing direct action to create change since their inception. This past summer, it was one of four organizations involved in the ‘Summer of Heat’, a mass civil disobedience campaign aimed at exposing the “greenwashing” tactics of Citibank and other financial institutions. The campaign led to over 700 arrests and garnered support for direct action organizations in the city.
Hoping to build off the ‘Summer of Heat’ and pension divestment campaigns, POP will continue their actions against the largest financiers of the fossil fuel industry and politicians complacent with climate inaction. “POP's goal is to make fossil fuel finance toxic – we hope to make it so no politician or business leader in the city feels comfortable funneling more cash into the industry,” says Teddy.
The coalition will also continue their actions directed at NY Governor Kathy Hochul in hopes of getting her to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act. In early June, NY state legislators passed the bill to force companies responsible for global warming to pay for climate change adaptation. Since then, the bill has been collecting dust on Hochul’s desk.
Activists emphasize that leaving climate justice to the discretion of politicians and corporations is a recipe for devastation. Even progressive politicians like Lander, who promised public pension divestments during his campaign, must be pushed towards action. As the urgency builds for climate action, equitable adaptation, and reparations and debt cancellation for the global south, the climate movement's need for direct action will as well.
The impact
As a coastal city, New York City will be exposed to several climate hazards, from sea level rise and storm surge to deadly heat effects that already claim 350 lives a year. Without prompt decarbonization and adaptation efforts, parts of the city may be left uninhabitable. If the plan Lander announced on October 22 is passed by the board, its significance would be massive. As Teddy puts it, “New Yorkers hoping to save for their future” would no longer be “forced to invest in the destruction of their future.”
A POP protest outside Citibank in New York City. (Photo: Planet Over Profit)
The plan would also have important implications for holding financiers accountable. The Private Equity Climate Risks Scorecard and Reports found that BlackRock’s assets were responsible for 104 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2023, KKR (BlackRock’s private equity division) for almost 65 million tons, and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) for just over 20 million tons. Compared to individual countries’ emissions in 2022, this would place BlackRock just above Qatar as the 40th largest emitter, KKR at 50th, and GIP at 88th.
These numbers suggest that tackling the climate impact of private equity firms and asset managers is necessary for global decarbonization. According to Stand.earth, an environmental advocacy network, the NYC divestment plan would pull over $3.6 billion from private equity firms like KKR and GIP..
Equally important, the plan would revive NYC’s lead-by-example attitude when it comes to climate justice. Of course, NYC still faces many environmental and climate justice issues, but the decision to divest public pension funds from fossil fuels proves that the future of U.S. cities doesn’t need to rely on investing in their own destruction. NYC will need to continue to address fossil fuel finance and ramp up its renewable energy efforts if it wants to be a living example of a sustainable city and mitigate the devastating impacts climate change will bring.
