New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has secured a second win after major US bank Citigroup followed in the footsteps of JPMorgan Chase by agreeing to disclose relative levels of financing for low-carbon energy versus fossil fuels.

In January, Lander, along with three New York City pension funds, filed resolutions at the two banks, plus Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and RBC, asking them disclose what is known as their ‘green financing ratios'.

Research from BloombergNEF suggests that banks must reach a 4-to-1 ratio of low-carbon investments to fossil fuels by 2030 in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. However, by the end of 2022, the ratio stood at just 0.73-to-1. 

As a result of the banks’ agreeing to disclose their ratios, the NYC Comptroller withdraw his resolutions at Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, although the resolutions are still expected to go to a vote at the remaining banks during the upcoming proxy season.

In response to the announcement, Ben Cushing, campaign director of the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign, said that the group “applaud[s] Comptroller Lander and New York City’s pension funds for their leadership to drive climate progress in the banking sector”. 

He added: “Now, all eyes are on the remaining Wall Street banks to also commit to disclosing this important baseline information, and then take the necessary steps to rapidly scale up clean energy financing and reduce fossil fuel financing to align with their climate goals.” 

In January 2023, EU lawmakers rejected a related proposal to adopt higher capital requirements for lending to fossil fuel projects, as part of a draft law to bring the outstanding components of the international regulatory framework for banks, Basel III, into effect. 

The proposal would have required banks to hold back one euro of their own capital for every euro invested in fossil fuel expansion projects – otherwise known as the ‘one-for-one’ capital rule.