Week 5 – Elders Week

Since June 10th, 296 people have been arrested at Citi’s global headquarters for demanding an end to fossil fuel expansion. This morning, 46 elders, including faith leaders, scientists, and movement luminary Bill McKibben, were arrested.

This action comes hot on the heels of the largest Summer of Heat action so far: when on June 28th, nearly 1,000 people marched on Citi’s HQ and 64 people were arrested for blockading the doors.

Just a few days after the June 28th action, we met with Citi management. We met with the bank’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Corporate Banking Head of Corporate Transition, and the Head of Environmental, Social, Risk Management, as well as other members of the sustainability team.

The fact that Citi felt the need to send a large and relatively senior team to the meeting is a sign that our campaign is working.

On our side of the table, we had Roishetta Ozane, the CEO of the Vessel Project of Louisiana; Jeffrey Jacoby, the deputy director of Texas Campaign for the Environment; Kazi Fouzia and Mohiba Ahmed from Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), a large NYC-based South Asian diaspora group; and Climate Defenders organizing director, Marlena Fontes.

Kazi and Mohiba spoke powerfully about the climate impacts already causing devastation in their home countries of Bangladesh and Pakistan. Roishetta spoke about the massive health impacts that LNG and fossil fuel projects are having on her community and other communities in the Gulf South.

After these powerful testimonies, we asked Citi 3 simple questions. Here are the questions we asked and Citi’s answers:

Question 1: Will you commit to stop funding new LNG projects or any company engaging in developing new LNG? Citi refused to answer.
Question 2: Will you commit to stop funding any company engaged in developing new coal, oil, or gas projects? Citi refused to answer.
Question 3: Will Jane Fraser, the CEO, meet with us to hear our concerns? Citi refused to answer.

During the meeting, members of Citi’s team suggested that we are targeting them because they are already a climate leader, citing a Bloomberg opinion piece. We responded that we are targeting them for the following reasons:

Since 2021, Citi has provided $60 billion to the companies most aggressively engaging in upstream oil and gas development
Last year, Citi provided $4.3 billion to companies developing new LNG projects
Last year, Citi’s clean energy to fossil energy ratio was 0.58:1 – lower than even JPMorgan Chase and a million miles from where it needs to be

We also told them that while it is disingenuous and dangerous to claim that Citi is currently a climate leader, we believe that Citi can be a leader.

If Citi were to commit to not financing LNG and fossil fuel expansion and massively increase its clean energy financing over the coming years, it truly would be an important leader in the fight to rein in catastrophic climate change, save countless ecosystems and prevent untold human suffering.

Until then it is complicit in the climate crisis and the lives and ecosystems being lost.

Immediately after the meeting, we reached out to request two follow up meetings: Roishetta and Jeffrey have requested a meeting to talk more about Citi’s LNG financing; we have requested a follow up meeting between Citi and the Summer of Heat campaign.

As campaign organizers who are accountable to a movement of people―including hundreds who have been arrested for the cause―we will continue to report back on how these meetings go to all of you.

You can amplify our report back from our meeting with Citi on social media. It’s on TikTok. Instagram. Twitter/X.

In Solidarity,
– Alec Connon, Stop the Money Pipeline coalition director

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