Today it was reported that JPMorgan Asset Management and State Street Global Advisors are departing from the Climate Action 100+ initiative, which comprises hundreds of institutional investors with tens of trillions of dollars under management that have committed to engage with major corporate polluters on climate disclosures and actions. BlackRock also announced it would be transferring its Climate Action 100+ partnership to a smaller international arm, pulling its corporate membership in the group.

Financial institutions have faced persistent attacks from right-wing, fossil-fuel backed politicians over their voluntary climate commitments, and new and pending regulations are forcing large asset managers to rectify their rampant greenwashing.

In response, Ben Cushing, Director of the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign, released the following statement:  “Asset managers that cave to disingenuous political attacks from climate-deniers are signaling that they will abandon their fiduciary duty to mitigate climate risk for short-term expediency’s sake. The origin of the so-called “anti-ESG” crusade is the fossil fuel industry and its fundamental opposition to an inevitable market transition that is already underway. It is naive for financial firms to think that leaving voluntary climate initiatives will stop the onslaught of attacks from far-right extremists — or change essential imperative to address the climate crisis.

"Ultimately, big polluters want Wall Street to abandon climate action entirely, which would be disastrous for our economy, for asset managers’ business, and for their clients’ long-term financial security. It’s up to asset managers’ clients and shareholders – especially public pension funds – to demand stronger climate action from their financial service providers, no matter which voluntary initiatives they may be in.”

This news article is reposted from the original on the Sierra Club website here.