Author: Jason Mogus

The Toronto Star reported today that RBC is one of many banks who are backing tar sands pipeline company Enbridge with “sustainability” linked loans. Yes this is the same Enbridge which is trying to build Line 3, a tar sands pipeline that heavily violates Indigenous rights.

These kind of accounting and PR tricks are why when banks boast about the billions they plan on spending on “green transition” projects, you need to keep a skeptical eye.

Canada’s largest banks have signed a new deal to pump $1.5 billion into Enbridge that will help the oil and gas company expand its pipeline network, with the vast majority of that money referred to as “sustainability linked” in the term sheets.

The funds are going towards Enbridge’s general business, and are deemed “sustainable” because of Enbridge’s long term pledges to reduce emissions intensity, add diversity to its board, and become a “Net Zero” company by 2050.

Stand.Earth’s Richard Brooks and Giniw Collective’s Tara Houska helped cut through the greenwash:

Brooks called Enbridge’s commitment to reduce emission intensity as part of its ESG goals a “slap in the face” because the goal only addresses the emissions the company is directly responsible for, without including the emissions created when the fossil fuels are ultimately burned.

The problem is “in the product they are going to be shipping, and facilitating the expanded use of, which in the case of Line 3 is tarsands oil,” he said. “They’re building out infrastructure whose lifespan is decades, (and) once we build, we’re basically locking in their usage for many years to come.”

Tara Houska with the Giniw Collective, an Indigenous-led organization leading the protests against Line 3, called it greenwashing to say the bank loans are linked to sustainability.

“I don’t think there’s any way you can try to paint a tarsands company as sustainable,” she said. “The product they’re pulling out of the earth is one of the most carbon-intensive processes to create oil in the entire world.”

“Canada has been one of those places where, because the industry is so deeply entrenched with the government and with the financial sector, it’s been really difficult to gain any traction,” she said.

“But I hope Canadians pay attention to that and think about how their financial sector –– and that their banks –– are just as entrenched with the fossil fuel industry as their government is, which is outright buying pipelines these days.”

Read the full article on the Toronto Star website.

Over the last few years, a growing movement has been building momentum to stop the money pipeline to tar sands, oil and gas projects that will ruin our climate and violate Indigenous rights. As we approach the global climate talks in Glasgow, we are coming together to demand “fossil banks” like RBC stop funding fossil fuels.

On October 29 people around the world are planning a day of action against the biggest funders of climate chaos. In Canada that means Canada’s biggest fossil bank, RBC, needs to feel the pressure from coast to coast to coast.

By forcing banks like RBC to quit fossil fuel financing and respect Indigenous rights, we can cut the fossil fuel industry’s lifeline, accelerate a just transition for workers, and protect us from the worst of climate chaos. Without this pressure banks will keep pouring billions into fossil fuels every year.

Will you join us on a call to prepare for Oct 29?

Across the country, a growing network of Indigenous Land Defenders, NGOs, climate activists, and student strikers are preparing actions for Oct 29. We will highlight our key demand: that RBC respect Indigenous People’s right to free, prior, and informed consent for any use of their lands and stop funding fossil fuels. Together we can remake this country and achieve harmony with Indigenous Peoples and nature.

We are inviting thousands of people like yourself across the country to join us in a webinar. We will hear from Indigenous Land Defenders and others affected by RBC’s investments. We will also conduct a training about how you can be part of this movement. As part of hundreds of actions across the US, UK, Europe, and more, we need RBC to feel the pressure at branches across the country.

4th of October 4pm PST (7 EST) – sign up here!

The movement to force the world’s worst banks to stop funneling billions into fossil fuels and Indigenous rights violations is growing around the world. Yesterday none other than TEEN VOGUE covered the upcoming global rallies set for October 29. Canadian projects like TransMountain and Canada’s biggest fossil bank RBC were also mentioned.

Read the full article by US climate strikers Katie Eder and Shannon Carlson at Teen Vogue.

On Friday over 40 climate activists were arrested in New York City, shutting down JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America branches for spending tens of billions bankrolling tar sands oil expansion during the climate emergency. Activists also shut down the Canadian Consulate for the Canadian government supporting the Trans Mountain and Line 3 pipelines in violation of Indigenous rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.

Here is the press release from Stop the Money Pipeline in the US:

On the 10th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and ahead of New York Climate week, 40 climate activists were arrested at bank headquarters and buildings of JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, and Bank of America to call on major Wall Street banks to stop financing fossil fuels by the start of the Glasgow Climate Talks on November 1st. Dozens more risk arrest at Chase and Bank of America bank branches as well as the Canadian Consulate in Seattle.

Activists in Seattle are specifically calling out Chase and Bank of America for spending tens of billions bankrolling tar sands oil expansion and the Canadian government for supporting the Trans Mountain and Line 3 pipelines. They’re joined by more than 150 people across the U.S. delivering 150,000 petition signatures as part of the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition’s Deadline Glasgow: Defund Climate Chaos campaign.

SEE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS OF THE ARRESTABLE ACTIONS ON THIS TWEET THREAD 

The Glasgow Climate Talks are the most important international climate talks since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. It is also supposed to be “the climate finance COP.” Scientists say that almost 60% of oil and gas reserves and 90% of coal must remain in the ground to keep global warming below 1.5C. This follows a groundbreaking report from the International Energy Association earlier this year that stated, “there is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net zero pathway.” Yet, not a single Wall Street bank has committed to winding down their investments in oil and gas and all still have some exposure to coal. In fact, the largest fossil fuel financier, JP Morgan Chase, has publicly committed to funding oil and gas for years to come.

SEE HOW THE BANKS COMPARE ON FOSSIL FUEL INVESTMENTS

Thanks to a combination of strategic inside and outside pressure from organizers and activists over several years, a number of private institutions are scaling down their exposure to fossil fuels:

• Harvard recently committed to divesting its funds from fossil fuels, including oil and gas, following Macalester Board of Trustees decision to divest from all publicly traded oil and gas assets after 8 years of student-led campaigning and a most recent push to divest from Enbridge, the company constructing the Line 3 pipeline
• After years of campaigning and a giant inflatable CEO debuted at the US Open, Chubb has publicly confirmed they are not insuring tar sands; this follows 15 other insurance companies who have dropped financing for the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline
• Advocates are cautiously optimistic after Liberty Mutual recently joined the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials
• In August, NYS pension fund announced it has divested from more coal and put some shale and gas on the review

Meanwhile, bankers are stubbornly eager to fund oil and gas. That’s why grassroots activists are turning up the pressure and advocates and electeds have pivoted to pressuring Biden to appoint a climate leader to head the Federal Reserve, and introducing a bill to require the Fed to ban fossil fuel financing. The surge in attention to climate finance comes as the Biden administration is set to issue a climate-related financial risk strategy around the COP26 talks.

The Stop the Money Pipeline coalition is a coalition of more than 175 organizations and growing, working to hold the financial backers of climate chaos accountable. 

Banks in the UK, Germany, and Switzerland have been under increasing pressure from social movements due to their fossil fuel investments.

It has been a devastating year so far of wildfires, floods, and storms across the globe, not to mention the first ever recorded rainfall in the Arctic. July was the hottest month in human history.

As climate violence bears on communities, breaking meteorological records and overwhelming social systems, even atmospheric scientists have expressed their shock at the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. What can be done to put the brakes on a climate at breaking point?

Thankfully, many are adopting bold responses, directing attention to the financial sector’s part in financing fossil fuel industries. In Europe, as we emerge from lockdowns and restrictions on mass gathering, organisers have pulled off some seriously impressive events, directly challenging banks for their complicity in fuelling the climate crisis. And things will get bigger and bolder in the lead up to COP.

In Switzerland

At the end of July, activists gathered in their thousands to confront the role of the Swiss financial sector in inflaming wildfires and supercharging storms. Switzerland may well be a small country, but the Swiss financial center is the source of twenty times its domestic emissions and plays a significant role exacerbating the crisis.

On August 2nd organisers targeted two of Switzerland’s biggest commercial banks, Credit Suisse and UBS for their support of projects like the Line 3 Tar sands pipeline and fracking projects in Argentina. They occupied the square at the heart of the financial sector in Zurich, blockading the bank’s headquarters to demand that they stop funding fossil fuels and human rights violations.

The banks were forced to close their doors until police removed the activists and their blockade. The actions were a great success with the Swiss media covering Swiss finances’ role in the climate crisis for the whole week.

In Germany 

Less than two weeks later, the climate movement in Germany responded to a call out from the local Fridays for Future group in Frankfurt to ‘Strike with Us’ and ‘Block the Banks’. Over 70 groups and organisations responded to the call with 15,000 people turning out to demand that financial giants like Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank and the European Central Bank stop the money flow to climate-wrecking industries.

Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015, banks have poured trillions of dollars into new fossil fuel projects. Despite all of their flashy PR claiming support for ‘net-zero’, these banks are still ploughing billions into new fossil fuel projects.

A recent report by Oil Change International – Unused Tools: How Central Banks Are Fueling the Climate Crisis – shows how despite the net zero commitments and bold talk by central bankers, these critical institutions are woefully behind in taking any practical action to confront the ecological crisis.

As the demand for central banks to stop supporting the fossil fuel industry, so do calls for them to use their unique money creation powers to play a proactive role in retiring them. Two solutions proposed by economists and campaigners being the creation of a bad / fossil bank or by buying majority shares in them to manage their retirement.

In the UK

Last week XR Money Rebellion targeted the heart of financial capitalism – the City of London. Home to some of the biggest banks in the world, such as Barclays and HSBC, a huge amount of the capital needed to build out new fossil fuels projects originates from decisions made by bankers here.

After rallying outside the Bank of England, protesters went to Standard Chartered bank, to highlight the $31.4bn that it has invested in fossil fuels since the Paris climate agreement; to Guildhall, from where the financial district is governed, ending at Paternoster Square, where the London Stock Exchange is located.

As the clarity of the climate emergency is growing, so is public understanding of the main culprits and drivers of the emergency. Financial institutions are fanning the flames of our planetary crisis – it’s time to turn back the heat on them. Watch this space for an exciting  announcement for what’s next!

A new report from the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International finds that Indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions.

The report highlights and analyzes 26 Indigenous frontline struggles in the past decade against a variety of fossil fuel projects across Turtle Island over all stages of the fossil fuel development chain. Their analysis reveals that Indigenous resistance to carbon over the past decade has stopped projects equivalent to 400 new coal-fired power plants, or roughly 345 million new passenger vehicles. Additionally, Indigenous resistance has helped shift public debate around fossil fuels and Indigenous Rights, while averting lock-in of carbon-intensive projects.

Here is the press release for the full report:

Indigenous Resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least 25% of annual U.S. & Canadian emissions. The numbers don’t lie. Indigenous peoples have long led the fight to protect Mother Earth and the only way forward is to center Indigenous knowledge and keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Today, the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International released a new report entitled Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon. The report analyzes the impact Indigenous resistance to fossil fuel projects in the United States and Canada has had on greenhouse gas emissions over the past 10 years. From the struggle against the Cherry Point coal export terminal in Lummi territory to fights against pipelines crossing critical waterways, Indigenous land defenders have exercised their rights and responsibilities to not only stop fossil fuel projects in their tracks, but establish precedents to build successful social justice movements.

Read the full report:
https://www.ienearth.org/indigenous-resistance-against-carbon
Share the report:
Share Pack: Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon

The new report is based on an analysis of 20 fossil fuel projects that have been stopped or delayed in the past 10 years due to Indigenous communities resisting across what is currently called the United States and Canada. Given the current climate crisis, Indigenous peoples are demonstrating that the assertion of Indigneous Rights not only upholds a higher moral standard, but provides a crucial path to confronting climate change head-on and reducing emissions.

The recently released United Nations climate change report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that in order to properly mitigate the worst of the climate crisis, rapid and large-scale action must be taken, with a focus on immediate reduction of fossil fuel emissions. As the United Nations prepares for its upcoming COP 26 climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, countries are being asked to update their pledges to cut emissions — but as the IPCC report states, current pledges fall short of the changes needed to mitigate the climate chaos already millions of people around the world.

While United Nations member countries continue to ignore the IPCC’s scientists and push false solutions and dangerous distractions like the carbon markets in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, Indigenous peoples continue to put their bodies on the line for Mother Earth. False solutions do not address the climate emergency at its root, and instead have damaging impacts like continued land grabs from Indigenous Peoples in the Global South. Indigenous social movements across Turtle Island have been pivotal in the fight for climate justice.

Read the full report: https://www.ienearth.org/indigenous-resistance-against-carbon

This article was written by Evelyn Austin of Bank on a Better Future and originally published in the National Observer. Here is an excerpt:

I recently returned home from Red Lake Treaty Camp at Thief River Falls in Minnesota, where I watched Enbridge complete its largest river crossing in the construction of the Line 3 pipeline. Despite being a Canadian-led project, Line 3 has received little media coverage on this side of the border.

The pipeline, soon to be operational, poses a serious threat to life on this continent. Enbridge calls it a replacement for the Line 3 pipeline that has been operational since the 1960s. However, the project now under construction will be twice as large as the original and take a different route, and Enbridge has no plans to remove the original pipeline from the ground, making “replacement” an empty word.

The project, once finished, will cross 200 bodies of water, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River, which runs into the Gulf of Mexico, and through two watersheds that run off into Lake Superior. The original Line 3 pipeline is responsible for the worst inland spill in U.S. history, and even before oil has begun to flow, the new pipeline has caused 28 drilling fluid spills into 12 river crossings. The pipeline violates treaty rights of Ojibwe nations of the area and cuts through treaty land without consent of tribal nations. Tara Houska, founder of Giniw Collective and a tribal attorney, calls the project “a perpetuation of cultural genocide.”

The replacement line construction has faced seven years of resistance from Ojibwe tribal nations in Minnesota, and since December, Indigenous and allied water protectors have carried out non-violent, on-the-ground resistance. As of this month, Minnesota police have arrested over 600 water protectors and issued 80 felony charges.

Perhaps unexpectedly, Canadian banks are implicated in this conflict. TD, RBC, Scotiabank, BMO and CIBC are Enbridge’s top five global financiers, and are all continuous lenders to the Line 3 project. This past winter, these banks issued a three-year, $1-billion “sustainability-linked” credit to Enbridge to continue its tarsands operations. The banks fund Enbridge, Enbridge funds police surveillance and the cycles of genocide and extraction in the name of return on investment continue.

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Read the full article on the National Observer.

Canadian banks are playing a growing and globally significant role in fueling climate destruction and are more exposed to climate risk than they are telling their shareholders according to data in a new Greenpeace report. The report finds that prior to the pandemic, Canadian big 5 banks steadily increased their fossil fuel loans and investments since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed.

This post was originally published on the Greenpeace Canada website.

TORONTO – Canadian banks are playing a growing and globally significant role in fueling climate destruction and are more exposed to climate risk than they are telling their shareholders according to data in a new Greenpeace report. The report finds that prior to the pandemic, Canadian big 5 banks steadily increased their fossil fuel loans and investments since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed.

“The UN Secretary General said that the latest IPCC climate science report should be a ‘death knell’ for fossil fuels, but Canadian banks are still providing hundreds of billions of dollars to keep oil, gas and coal companies alive. Canadian banks have provided over thirteen times more financial support to the fossil fuel industry than the federal government has spent on its plan to meet its Paris climate commitments, with no end in sight,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada. “If bankers won’t read the IPCC report, then they should step outside and smell the smoke from climate-fueled wildfires and recognize that they have a choice: stop funding fossil fuels or go down in history as planetary arsonists.”

The report was commissioned by Greenpeace Canada from the consultant firm Profundo, contributors to the annual “Banking on Climate Chaos” report.

Key findings of the report include: 

• Canadian Banks have provided almost CAD $700 billion to companies active in the fossil fuels sector since the signing of the December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement in the form of loans ($477 billion) and underwriting services ($216 billion).
• Canadian banks also hold $125 billion in fossil fuel shares and bonds, and the number of shares they hold has been rising.
• This $819 billion in loans ($694 billion) and investments ($125 billion) is over 13 times greater than the $60 billion the federal government has invested in climate action and clean growth since 2015.
• All of Canada’s big 5 banks are in the top 25 of global banks financing fossil fuels. Amongst the six banks in the study, RBC is the largest financier of fossil fuels, followed by Scotiabank, TD, BMO, CIBC and then the Desjardins Group (DG).
• The bulk of the loans and underwriting ($609 billion, or 88% of total) went to oil & gas companies. Coal companies received the other 12% of the total ($84.8 billion). Enbridge was the largest recipient, followed by CNRL, TransCanada and Cenovus.
• Fossil fuel financing rose from $122 billion in 2016 to $160 billion in 2019, before dropping by 30% in 2020 due to the pandemic.
• Profundo’s analysis of the banks’ exposure to losses from a decline in the value of fossil fuel companies consistent with achieving a 1.5 degree scenario is larger than what they self-report (a 130 basis points decline on average in this analysis versus 57 basis points in their published materials).
• Outstanding loans to oil & gas firms account for around half of the Common Equity Tier 1 Capital (a key indicator of financial stability) for BMO (54%), CIBC (49%) and Scotiabank (45%). Oil & gas loans are also significant for TD (35%) and RBC (29%) but less so for DG (13%). Exposure to the broader fossil fuel industry is even more significant, accounting for around 55-60% of Common Equity Tier 1 (CET 1) Capital for BMO, Scotiabank and CIBC; around 40% for TD and RBC; and 17% for DG.
• While fossil fuel companies are major clients of Canadian banks, this relationship is not “too big to fail”. The banks can eliminate the risk of stranded assets by phasing out their support for fossil fuels. And all of the banks currently have capital reserves roughly double what is required by regulators, so even in a 1.5-degree scenario the impact of the loan defaults by fossil fuel companies would not, on their own, put the banks in breach of those requirements.

The federal bank regulator (the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions – OSFI) is currently reviewing banks’ exposure to climate risk, and Greenpeace Canada is calling on the government to regulate them rather than rely on the bankers’ goodwill.

Most of Canada’s big 5 banks have made a public commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The International Energy Agency has said that achieving this goal requires that there be no new investments in fossil fuels and an accelerated phase-out of existing fossil fuel operations.

– 30 –

The full report can be found here.

The military junta in Myanmar is one of the world’s worst regimes, murdering, arresting its citizens and committing war crimes including genocide with near total impunity. So you would think Canadian banks concerned about their public image and upholding both international law and human rights practices wouldn’t be so quick to support it.

But a new report out today from Banktrack uncovered that 19 international banks together have invested $65B in companies with ties to the military junta.

Both RBC and TD Bank are on the dubious list of having more than $1B invested.

 “The Myanmar military’s campaign of terror is enabled by the complicity of international companies that continue to do business with the illegal junta and its conglomerates. Banks have a responsibility to take action against investees that are complicit in the junta’s atrocities. Now Myanmar is being ravaged by Covid-19 and the military’s response has been to buy more arms, arrest doctors, raid clinics and steal supplies. The people of Myanmar need investors to act now to help stem the tragic loss of life.” — Yadanar Maung, spokesperson at Justice For Myanmar:

Learn more at the BankTrack website.

Many people still don’t know their banks are as bad for the climate as oil companies, so a group of activists in Toronto are organizing rides that stop at bank branches and leaving a little message behind. Here is a first hand account from today’s ride:

Today was a ride to protest bank funding of the fossil fuel industry that was organized by the Climate Pledge Collective and Toronto 350.org, noting that RBC, TD and Scotiabank are among the worst dozen banks worldwide that fund the fossil fuel industry. The group gathered at Christie Pits.

We are given our marching orders: we are to split up into smaller groups and each group would write messages in chalk outside one of the bank branches along Bloor between Christie and Yonge.

Here we are out front of RBC, the #1 fossil bank in Canada.

See more great photos and the full story here.