New York's pension fund will be divesting of multiple fossil fuel investments for reportedly not preparing enough to meet carbon neutral goals, but the state's pension funds still has billions connected to investments in China, one of the most pollution-heavy nations in the world.
According to New York Business Daily, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli recently announced the state's pension fund will be divesting $238 million worth of stock and debt it holds in 21 shale oil and gas companies. DiNapoli said that the divestiture targets companies that have not done enough to prepare or transition to a low emissions economy.
"To protect the state pension fund, we are restricting investments in companies that we believe are unprepared to adapt to a low-carbon future," DiNapoli said in New York Business Daily.
According to a review, the companies being sold have not stopped investing heavily in high-risk and high-cost assets, a spokesman for DiNapoli's office said via e-mail to Reuters.
The pension fund is the third largest in the United States. According to DiNapoli in New York Business Daily, the next step is to review investments in integrated oil companies. The divestment comes as oil and gas stocks lead market gains on the back of higher commodity prices and reduced spending.
Hess Corp. in New York and Houston-based APA Corp., two companies the fund will be divesting from, are among the top 10 performers in the S&P 500 index this year. All 10 of said top performers are oil and gas companies. he pension fund is the third largest in the United States.
Despite its action against these companies for not meeting carbon neutral goals, New York has approximately $9.8 billion in state pension funds invested with NYC-based BlackRock, a company that has come under fire for substantial investments in China. New York's investment in BlackRock is the third most amount of money out of any state pension fund.
Consumers' Research has issued a warning about BlackRock to raise awareness of the firm's investments in China. The organization said in a letter this puts the security and finances of the public at risk, and particularly highlighted state-run pension plans tied up with BlackRock. The same letter was addressed to the governors of the top 10 states with state pension funds invested in BlackRock. Those states were Washington, South Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma, New York, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Montana. Nebraska and West Virginia.
Investments in China remain large while the country has the largest share of emissions in the world, accounting for nearly a third of all emissions according to data from 2019.
When asked in an interview with The Hill how China was doing with green energy development, Consumers' Research Executive Director Will Hild said: "They're putting out dozens of coal power plants a year. They certainly don't have a problem with investing in known energy sources so that their populists can can turn the lights on reliably without ever higher energy costs."
Hild also said during the interview that BlackRock and its CEO, Larry Fink, "are betraying the American consumer. At the same time, he's not doing anything like that to the Chinese Communist Party. They're invested in PetroChina there and don't mess with any of their assets."
BlackRock is the lead investment adviser for the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) of New York and claims no fund that divested from fossil fuels lost money.