350 Wenatchee Climate Conversations NCW

Jeanne,

Every year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink releases a letter to the CEOs of the companies BlackRock invests in. This letter serves as an update on Fink’s operating philosophies and is typically heavily covered by financial press as an important signal of the asset manager’s plans for the year ahead, including how it will approach its role in the climate crisis. The 2022 letter is now out and unfortunately it lacks any meaningful substance.

In the letter posted Monday night, Fink didn’t outline any new climate commitments; instead, he doubled down on an attempt to please all sides, defending fossil fuel investments and refusing to denounce fossil fuel expansion projects.

It’s clear that Larry Fink wants to please everyone, including climate deniers and laggards, in this letter. Unfortunately for Larry, it’s just not possible to meaningfully commit to decarbonizing efforts and also appease climate deniers. Who’s side is Larry Fink really on?

We need your help to refute Fink’s claims that fossil fuels can be green. Here’s what you can do: 

• For Twitter users: Reply to BlackRock’s tweet announcing Fink’s 2022 CEO letter and urge the firm to announce more concrete climate policy commitments and stop pandering to fossil fuel companies. For ideas on what BlackRock could be doing better, see our network’s position paper on what good interim NetZero targets from BlackRock would look like. You can also read our network’s official response to the 2022 CEO letter here. Any comment calling BlackRock out on its lack of concrete climate commitments is important and impactful regardless of how specific you can get!
• For those with Google accounts: Leave a comment on this video of Larry Fink’s recent interview with Squawk Box on CNBC. The interviewer asked great questions about whether this year’s letter represents Fink walking back on some of his previous climate commitments. It’s critical to affirm this approach to asking tough questions of Larry Fink and make sure comments are directed at pushing Fink and BlackRock to announce more concrete climate policy commitments and stop hiding behind hydrocarbons as a bridge solution. (Here’s some additional background on why hydrocarbons are problematic.)

In addition to the annual letter directed at corporate executives, Fink also traditionally releases a separate letter directed at BlackRock clients. We’ve yet to see that client-facing letter this year, but we’re hoping it will come soon and include some actual concrete climate policy commitments from BlackRock.

Fink wants to have his cake and eat it too by claiming to center sustainability in his business while continuing to profit off of fossil fuels. There’s great power in pointing out this isn’t possible, but we can’t do it without your help. Leave your comment(s) today; it will take less than five minutes to do both and can make a real difference!

We’ve made so much progress raising our voices together to challenge the power of big finance. Looking forward to another year of continuing to do so alongside you all.

In solidarity,
Angela Holecko
Senior Digital Campaigner
BlackRock’s Big Problem Campaign

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