In response to the announcement of Citi’s five-year 2025 Sustainable Progress Strategy, including joining the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), Jason Opeña Disterhoft, Rainforest Action Network Climate and Energy Senior Campaigner, said:
“This announcement includes important steps forward, but leaves the hardest work still to do. We welcome Citi becoming the second major U.S. bank to join PCAF, an important effort to measure and disclose the emissions of lending and investments. But while the strategy recognizes that the climate impact of its client portfolio must be reduced, and affirms that global CO2 emissions must be cut by 45% by 2030, its target covers only operational emissions, a small fraction of the bank’s total impact. Citi is the world’s third biggest lender and underwriter to fossil fuels, and the only major U.S. bank whose fossil financing has risen each year since the Paris Agreement. It is also the top banker of coal power outside of China. The direction of travel for climate leadership is clear: Citi should adopt a science-based target to cut its overall climate impact in line with the trajectory needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C.”