SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Mayors of New York and London Urge Every Major City in the World to Divest
Sadiq Khan and Bill de Blasio issue joint call as they unveil a toolkit for other cities considering divestment.
LONDON
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio have today urged fellow mayors of the world's leading cities to join them in divesting their city pension funds from fossil fuel assets, to help avert climate breakdown. The call to action from Mayors Khan and de Blasio came as they unveiled a toolkit for other cities considering divestment. The new guide "Divesting from Fossil Fuels, Investing in Our Future: A Toolkit for Cities" sets out a clear pathway for cities on how to divest from fossil fuels and increase sustainable investments and is a product of the C40 global initiative on Divest/Invest chaired by London and New York City, launched by Mayor Khan and Mayor de Blasio in September 2018.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: "Over the last three years, London has led from the front on divesting from fossil fuels and addressing the climate emergency. At City Hall, I am working with the London Pensions Fund Authority to take all possible steps to divest its remaining investments in fossil fuel industries. I have also encouraged local authorities and organizations in London to do the same. However, we need all cities to act now to help protect our planet for future generations. So, together with New York and C40, I'm calling on every major city in the world to follow suit. This toolkit will demonstrate to other cities that taking action on divestment is not only achievable but also essential to investing in our future."
Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio said: "With New York City's Green New Deal, we are leading the nation in fighting the political power and corporate money of the fossil fuel industry. We are proud to join with London and C40 Cities to offer our expertise in how to invest in the future of our planet. These are not easy steps, but they are absolutely necessary."
Bill McKibben said: "Thanks to C40 and leading city mayors like Sadiq Khan and Bill de Blasio, divestment has become a standard--and crucial--part of the toolkit for taking on the climate crisis. It makes no sense--morally, practically, or financially--to invest in the industries endangering our cities. And on the list of actions humans will have to take to deal with the planet's heating, it combines relatively low cost and effort with remarkably high leverage. Instead of having to move cities, let's move money!"
Divesting from Fossil Fuels, Investing in Our Future: A Toolkit for Cities features an array of case studies from cities around the world that have already committed to ambitious divestment and sustainable investment action, including London, New York, Melbourne, Berlin and Stockholm.
The toolkit reveals that none of the city pension funds that have already divested from fossil fuel assets report having suffered a negative impact on portfolio performance and some have seen better performance from their fossil-fuel free investments.
Almost every city anywhere in the world can support the Divest/Invest movement, the toolkit concludes. Such action can include divesting municipal investments or working with the city or regional pension fund to divest and increase sustainable investments. Cities also have an important role to play, the report says, to call on other financial institutions, such as private investors, to decarbonise their portfolios and stop their support for the fossil fuel industry.
This new guide was prepared as part of the C40 Divest/Invest Forum. Launched in close partnership with London and New York City, it is a first-of-its-kind initiative that helps urban leaders make the leap to effective and efficient divestment and accelerate green investment. The Forum has fourteen participating cities to date, including the latest joiners Auckland, Melbourne and Stockholm. From 16-18 March 2020, city leaders will come together in New York City to share their progress and experience in divesting from fossil fuel companies and increasing investment in climate solutions.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
US Military Reportedly Feeds Trump a Daily Propaganda Reel of ‘Stuff Blowing Up’ in Iran
"Every day the Pentagon makes a video of cool explosions from Iran for the president of the United States to watch, so he can bounce up and down in his high chair, clap his little hands, and cry 'Yay! Make it go boom again!'"
Mar 25, 2026
A Wednesday report from NBC News is raising concerns that President Donald Trump may be getting a rose-colored view of the unprovoked and unconstitutional war he started with Iran.
According to NBC News, US military officials show Trump a daily two-minute video montage of operations conducted in the Iran war, featuring "the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets," with one official telling NBC that the video essentially consists of "stuff blowing up."
Two sources in the administration told NBC that "the video briefing is fueling concerns among some of Trump’s allies that he may not be receiving—or absorbing—the complete picture of the war," and one official told the network that "the information Trump gets about the war tends to emphasize US successes, with comparatively little detail about Iranian actions."
The video montages are also leaving the president confused about why the media is covering negative ramifications of the war, which he believes to be an unqualified success, NBC reported.
Critics of the president were quick to slam him and his administration over the reported war highlights montage.
"Sounds like Trump is getting a Centcom propaganda video briefing of things blowing up every day," commented foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen, "but not being briefed when things go wrong."
Anthony Zurcher, North America correspondent for BBC, wrote that it appears Trump is "getting an overly rosy picture from his generals of how an unpopular war is going."
MS NOW columnist Paul Waldman contended that the president's behavior as depicted in the NBC report was positively childlike.
"Every day the Pentagon makes a video of cool explosions from Iran for the president of the United States to watch," wrote Waldman, "so he can bounce up and down in his high chair, clap his little hands, and cry 'Yay! Make it go boom again!'"
National security attorney Bradley Moss summarized the NBC report with a single five-word sentence: "The emperor has no brains."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump-Endorsed Candidate Loses to Democrat in President's Mar-a-Lago Home District
Even Trump's mail-in ballot was not enough to keep Democrat Emily Gregory from winning the seat over Republican Jon Maples in a district swing of more than 13 points.
Mar 25, 2026
A Democrat in Florida running to win a state house seat in the Palm Beach district that includes US President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was declared the winner in a special election on Tuesday night, defeating the Trump-endorsed Republican in yet another powerful rebuke to the running of the country by the president and his party.
Emily Gregory flipped Florida's House District 87, defeating Republican Jon Maples, who Trump loudly endorsed and cast his vote for personally via mail-in ballot—something he wants to bar other voters nationwide from being able to do. Trump said on Monday that Maples, a financial planner who previously held office at the municipal level, was the choice of "so many of my Palm Beach County friends.”
But with almost all votes counted late Tuesday night, the Associated Press reported Gregory led by 2.4 percentage points, or 797 votes. In 2024, the district went to Republicans by 11 points.
"Republicans are vulnerable everywhere.”
Political strategist Sawyer Hackett named the obvious implication by saying, at least through November of 2026, "Trump will be represented by a Democrat in the Florida legislature."
“I think it demonstrates where the Florida voter is,” Gregory, who runs a fitness center for postpartum mothers, told Politico in an interview following her victory. “They want someone who is focused on solutions and the issues and not focused on the noise.”
“If Mar-a-Lago is vulnerable, imagine what’s possible this November,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, in response to the victory. Williams noted that Gregory's win was the 29th seat that Democrats have flipped from GOP control since Trump returned to office last year.
“Gas prices are spiking, grocery costs are up, and families can’t get by," she said. "It’s clear voters at the polls are fed up with Republicans. A Trump +11 district in his own backyard shouldn’t be in play for Democrats, but tonight proves Republicans are vulnerable everywhere.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
With First-of-Its-Kind Bill, Sanders and AOC Propose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers
"These massive facilities are sucking up precious water resources, paving over farmland, driving climate change, and disrupting the fabric of communities," said one supporter of the new legislation.
Mar 25, 2026
Two of the leading progressives in the US Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, announced legislation on Wednesday that would impose a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new artificial intelligence data centers amid mounting concerns over their insatiable consumption of power and water resources, impacts on the climate, and other harms.
Sanders' (I-Vt.) office said in a press release announcing the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act that the construction pause would remain in effect "until strong national safeguards are in place to protect workers, consumers, and communities, defend privacy and civil rights, and ensure these technologies do not harm our environment."
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are set to formally introduce their legislation at a press conference on Wednesday at 4 pm ET.
Food & Water Watch (FWW), which last year became the first national organization in the US to call for a total moratorium on the approval of new AI data centers, celebrated the first-of-its-kind bill and called on other members of Congress to "move quickly to sponsor, champion, and pass" it. FWW's groundbreaking call for a national AI data center moratorium was later echoed by hundreds of advocacy organizations at the state and national levels.
“We need a halt to the explosive growth of new AI data center construction now, because political and community leaders across the country have been caught completely off guard by this aggressive, profit-hungry industry," Mitch Jones, FWW's managing director of policy and litigation, said in a statement Wednesday. "It has yet to be determined if—not how—the industry can ever operate in a manner that sufficiently protects people and society from the profusion of inherent hazards and harms that data centers bring wherever they appear."
“Long before the recent spike in global oil prices, Americans throughout the country were dealing with skyrocketing electricity rates due to the egregious consumption and jolting grid impacts levied by Big Tech’s AI data centers," Jones added. "Meanwhile, these massive facilities are sucking up precious water resources, paving over farmland, driving climate change, and disrupting the fabric of communities. We mustn’t allow another unchecked Silicon Valley scheme to profit off our backs while sticking us with the bill."
In a detailed report released last week, titled The Urgent Case Against Data Centers, FWW pointed to some of the "documented harms caused by AI and data centers," including:
- Enormous energy footprints: A single hyperscale data center can consume as much energy as 2 million US households.
- A lifeline for fossil fuels: The thirst for fuel is being met by keeping old coal-fired power plants running and by building new natural gas ones.
- Skyrocketing electricity costs: Increased energy demand can raise residential rates, which soared 31% from 2020 to 2025 (compared to 4% from 2015 to 2020).
- Drained water resources: By 2028, AI data centers could use as much water as 18.5 million households, just for cooling their servers.
- An investment bubble: A handful of companies are investing in one another and increasingly turning to risky debt structures to hide the threat of the bubble.
- A litany of other harms: This includes massive amounts of electronic waste (e-waste), unrelenting noise pollution, loss of farmland, political instability from deepfake videos, lost revenue from data center tax incentives, and child endangerment from AI chatbots.
Those harms have fueled massive grassroots opposition to AI data centers, with communities organizing to prevent construction in their backyards. One report estimates that between May 2024 and March 2025, local opposition helped tank or delay $64 billion worth of data center projects across the US.
That opposition has pushed local lawmakers to act. According to a tracker maintained by Good Jobs First, "at least 63 local data-center moratorium actions have been introduced, considered, or adopted across dozens of towns and counties," and "some 54 have already passed."
At the state level, Good Jobs First counted "at least 12 in-session states with filed data center moratorium bills this cycle," and noted that some governors have taken or floated executive action to slow or pause AI data center build-outs.
But the Trump administration is trying to move in the opposite direction.
In a national policy framework document unveiled last week, the White House urged Congress to "streamline federal permitting for AI infrastructure construction and operation" and called for a prohibition on state regulation of AI.
Jim Walsh, FWW's policy director, slammed the White House framework as "more of the same nonsense we’ve been hearing for months" and warned that "more data centers mean more climate-killing fracked gas power plants poisoning our air and water, and more stress placed on local communities’ precious water resources."
"The only prudent course of action when it comes to AI," said Walsh, "is to halt the explosive growth of new data center construction now, so that states and communities have the time needed to properly consider their own futures."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular