New York City’s largest pension funds on Monday voted to pull their money from fossil fuel investments within five years, portfolios that hold an estimated $4 billion in securities.

New York City pension fund allocation

Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer and trustees of two of the city’s pension funds said the plan is to cut off money for fossil fuel-related investments within five years.

In a first-in-the-nation step, de Blasio, Stringer and other trustees of the city’s pension funds in early 2018 launched a sweeping plan to drop fossil fuel investments from the city’s five pension plans.

The funds have securities in more than 190 fossil fuel-related companies.

Fossil fuels “are a bad investment,” de Blasio said. Stringer called climate change ‘the fight of our lives, and we...