Canadian banks have a serious fossil fuel addiction. But it is not just a Canadian problem.
The latest study of corporate data from 60 of the world’s largest banks shows that rather than cutting back on the funding of fossil fuel projects since the 2016 global agreement to limit greenhouse gases, they have increased that funding to $3.8 trillion US in the past five years.
The report outlining the data, titled Banking on Climate Chaos 2021, is the 12th annual tally of fossil fuel financing by a group of seven climate advocacy organizations, including Rainforest Action Network and the Sierra Club, both based in the United States.
The good news for those concerned about climate change is that a crash in the fossil fuel business during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp drop in investment growth in 2020, but the report’s authors fear that a growing recovery this year will lead to a “snap back to business as usual.”
Although U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase, have committed to establishing emissions targets for their financing portfolios in line with the Paris climate accord, the report declares that North America’s biggest bank has also been “the world’s worst fossil bank” over the past five years, lending $317 billion to the industry.
RBC punches above its weight
And while U.S. banks lead the pack, Canada’s RBC has the dubious honour of punching above its weight. Four Canadian banks are in the top 20, including RBC, TD, Scotiabank and Bank of Montreal.
“Citi follows as the second-worst fossil bank, followed by Wells Fargo, Bank of America, RBC and MUFG [Mitsubishi],” the fossil fuel finance report says. “Barclays is the worst in Europe and Bank of China is the worst in China.”
Despite repeated calls by people like former central banker Mark Carney and business leaders such as Larry Fink, CEO of investment giant BlackRock, for companies to decarbonize to avoid risks to the entire economic system, people close to Canada’s banking industry say banks like RBC are having trouble changing direction.
“There’s a lot in the Canadian psyche and history that is wrapped up in the fossil fuel economy, and we’re feeling some of that inertia right now,” said Laura Zizzo, co-founder and CEO of Manifest Climate, a Toronto company that advises financial institutions across North America on strategies to help them navigate climate change.
Working closely with Canada’s big banks — though she wouldn’t say whether RBC was one of her clients — Zizzo said she is convinced that people at the highest corporate levels really are committed to change. It’s just happening more slowly than many who fear the impact of climate change would like to see.
Responding to my question asking why Canada’s biggest bank continued to lend such large amounts — $160 billion over the past five years — to the fossil fuel industry and its projects, RBC reaffirmed its commitment to net zero emissions, including a promise of $500 billion in sustainable finance by 2025. It said it was also the first bank to commit not to lend to resource projects in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
RBC has committed to net zero carbon emissions in its portfolio, but a new report says it has loaned more money to the fossil fuel industry in the past five years than any other bank in Canada. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)
But in a country where there is so much political and economic pressure for oil and gas development, RBC said that to be successful, its move to net zero must be gradual.
“This transition is vitally important and it must be done in an inclusive manner that brings all sectors and communities along or we won’t achieve the support we need to meet these goals,” RBC said in an email.
Bad for banks, as well as the climate
As Carney — who was governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England before becoming head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management — has warned in the past, when financial institutions take a stake in long-term fossil fuel projects, it is not just bad for the climate.
In order to hold temperatures at levels scientists say are necessary to keep temperature rise to 2 C, experts say the value of fossil fuel investments must fall to zero in about 30 years. Carney and others say a rush to get out of those investments as the crisis worsens could create a financial risk for the entire economy and for institutions such as banks, pension funds and insurance companies.
Former central banker Mark Carney, addressing the United Nations Climate Change Conference in London in February 2020, has warned that when financial institutions take a stake in long-term fossil fuel projects, it creates a financial risk for the entire economy. (Tolga Akmen/Pool via/Reuters)
It also creates a risk for ordinary Canadians who depend on those institutions for their banking, pensions and insurance, as well as for investors and employees.
That is what Zizzo, who trained as a lawyer, sees as her company’s job: to help banks transition to a point where climate risk will not hurt them or their stakeholders. And she says part of the difficulty for banks is that their normal investment horizons are two years, or maybe a little longer.
“But generally they are all still too short to think about the longer-term issues of climate,” she said. Financial institutions are currently struggling to adapt to new global requirements, expected soon, where investors will have to be informed of a bank’s long-term climate liability, she said.
“It’s taking time before it actually percolates into the risk-management functions of these financial institutions,” Zizzo said.
She also says that so far, banks have been better at expanding their investments in greener projects than they have been in paring back on fossil fuels.
That failure to reduce investments in fossil fuel expansion is the problem identified in Wednesday’s bank report. Adam Scott, director of Shift, a Toronto-based group that monitors pensions for climate risk, says it demonstrates what he calls a lack of “climate literacy.”
Suncor’s oilsands base plant in Fort McMurray, Alta. A crash in the fossil fuel business during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp drop in investment growth in 2020. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)
Despite the recent vote by federal Conservatives in Canada rejecting the idea that climate change is real, Scott said that is not a view shared by most bankers he meets. The problem is that they fail to recognize that the problem “requires the phaseout of fossil fuels entirely over a very short period of time.”
“I think the thing that’s missed here is that when you build new fossil fuel projects, you’re locking in emissions for decades to come. So an investment today in new fossil fuel makes it harder to address the climate crisis,” Scott said.
“It’s going to make a very difficult thing more difficult,” he said. “The banks are pouring money into making this problem harder, and that just has to stop.”
CALGARY – The Calgary Flames have re-signed defenceman Ilya Solovyov and centre Cole Schwindt, the NHL club announced Wednesday.
Solovyov signed a two-year deal which is a two-way contract in year one and a one-way deal in year two and carries an average annual value of US$775,000 at the NHL level.
Schwindt signed a one-year, two-way contract with an average annual value of $800,000 at the NHL level.
The 24-year-old Solovyov, from Mogilev, Belarus, made his NHL debut last season and had three assists in 10 games for the Flames. He also had five goals and 10 assists in 51 games with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and added one goal in six Calder Cup playoff games.
Schwindt, from Kitchener, Ont., made his Flames debut last season and appeared in four games with the club.
The 23-year-old also had 14 goals and 22 assists in 66 regular-season games with the Wranglers and added a team-leading four goals, including one game-winning goal, in the playoffs.
Schwindt was selected by Florida in the third round, 81st overall, at the 2019 NHL draft. He came to Calgary in July 2022 along with forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade that sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
KING CITY, Ont. – Oman scored 10 runs in the final over to edge Nepal by one wicket with just one ball remaining in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 play Wednesday.
Kaleemullah, the No. 11 batsman who goes by one name, hit a four with the penultimate ball as Oman finished at 223 for nine. Nepal had scored 220 for nine in its 50 overs.
Kaleemullah and No. 9 batsman Shakeel Ahmed each scored five in the final over off Sompal Kami. They finished with six and 17 runs, respectively.
Opener Latinder Singh led Oman with 41 runs.
Nepal’s Gulsan Jha was named man of the match after scoring 53 runs and recording a career-best five-wicket haul. The 18-year-old slammed five sixes and three-fours in his 35-ball knock, scoring 23 runs in the 46th over alone when he hit six, six, four, two, four and one off Aqib Ilyas.
Captain Rohit Paudel led Nepal with 60 runs.
The 19th-ranked Canadians, who opened the triangular series Monday with a 103-run win over No. 17 Nepal, face No. 16 Oman on Friday, Nepal on Sunday and Oman again on Sept. 26. All the games are at the Maple Leaf Cricket Ground.
The eight World League 2 teams each play 36 one-day internationals spread across nine triangular series through December 2026. The top four sides will go through to a World Cup qualifier that will decide the last four berths in the expanded 14-team Cricket World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Canada (5-4) stands second in the World League 2 table. The 14th-ranked Dutch top the table at 6-2.
Oman (2-2 with one no-result) stands sixth, ahead of Nepal (1-5).
Canada won all four matches in its opening tri-series in February-March, sweeping No. 11 Scotland and the 20th-ranked host Emirates. But the Canadians lost four in a row to the 18th-ranked U.S. and host Netherlands in August.
Canada which debuted in the T20 World Cup this summer in the U.S. and West Indies, is looking to get back to the showcase 50-over Cricket World Cup for the first time since 2011 after failing to qualify for the last three editions. The Canadian men also played in the 1979, 2003 and 2007 tournaments, exiting after the group stage in all four tournament appearances.
The Canadian men regained their one-day international status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Playoff in April 2023 in Bermuda.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
PENTICTON, B.C. – Rick Tocchet has already warned his Vancouver Canucks players — the looming NHL season won’t be easy.
The team made strides last year, the head coach said Wednesday ahead of training camp. The bar has been raised for this year’s campaign.
“To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it’s going to be hard. We know that,” Tocchet said in Penticton, B.C., where the team will open its camp on Thursday.
“So that’s the next level. It starts day one (on Thursday). My thing is don’t waste a rep out there.”
The Canucks finished atop the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record last season, then ousted the Nashville Predators from the playoffs in a gritty, six-game first-round series. Vancouver then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in a seven-game second-round set.
Last fall, Jim Rutherford, the Canucks president of hockey operations, said everything would have to go right for the team to make a playoff push. That doesn’t change this season, he said, despite last year’s success.
“The challenges will be greater, certainly. But I believe the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year and probably better,” he said.
“As long as the team builds off what they did last year, stick to what the coaches tell them, stick to the system, stick together in good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.”
Some key players will be missing as Vancouver’s training camp begins, however.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that star goalie Thatcher Demko will not be on the ice when the team begins it’s pre-season preparation.
Allvin did not disclose the reason for Demko’s absence, but said the 28-year-old American has been making progress.
“He’s been in working extremely hard and he seems to be in a great mindset,” the GM said.
Demko missed several weeks of the regular season and much of Vancouver’s playoff run last spring with a knee injury.
The six-foot-four, 192-pound goalie has a career 213-116-81 regular-season record with a .912 save percentage, a 2.79 goals-against average and eight shutouts across seven seasons with the Canucks.
Allvin also announced that veteran centre Teddy Blueger and defensive prospect Cole McWard will also miss the start of training camp after each had “minor lower-body surgery.”
Vancouver previously announced winger Dakota Joshua won’t be present for the start of camp as he recovers from surgery for testicular cancer.
Tocchet said he’ll have no problem filling the holes, and plans to switch his lines up a lot in Penticton.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “I think it’s important that you have different puzzles at different times.”
The coach added that he expects standout centre Elias Pettersson to begin on a line with Canucks newcomer Jake DeBrusk.
Vancouver inked DeBrusk, a former Boston Bruins forward, to a seven-year, US$38.5 million deal when the NHL’s free agent market opened on July 1.
The glare on Pettersson is expected to be bright once again as he enters the first year of a new eight-year, $92.8 million contract. The 25-year-old Swede struggled at times last season and put 89 points (34 goals, 55 assists) in 82 games.
Rutherford said he was impressed with how Pettersson looked when he returned to Vancouver ahead of camp.
“He seems to be a guy that’s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons,” said the president of hockey ops. “This is a guy that I believe has worked really hard this summer. He’s done everything he can to play as a top-line player. … The expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.”
A number of Canucks hit milestones last season, including Quinn Hughes, who led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 92 points and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top blue liner.
Several players could once again have career-best years for Vancouver, Tocchet said, but they’ll need to be consistent and not allow frustration to creep in when things go wrong.
“You’ve just got to drive yourself every day when you have a great year,” the coach said. “You’ve got to keep creating that environment where they can achieve those goals, whatever they are. And the main goal is winning. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
