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Local climate protestors rally against big banks investment in fossil fuels

November 4, 2021   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

On the list of worldwide banks investing in fossil fuels since 2015, when almost 200 countries gathered to sign the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions and pollution, are three of Canada’s five big banks, among the “Dirty Dozen,” of this year’s Fossil Fuel Finance Report from the Banking on Climate Crisis.

Of 60 major banks globally, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) comes in fifth with a massive investment in fossil fuel industry from 2016 to 2020 of over $160 billion (CDN). Lagging not that far behind, at number nine on the list is TD Bank Group (TD), having invested funds to the tune of $121 billion. Scotia Bank comes in 11th. Following are the Bank of Montreal standing at 16th and CIBC at 22nd.

Last Friday’s (Nov. 29) March for the Climate Change Action – Dufferin Caledon (CCA-DC) took its protestors to stand in front of RBC’s downtown Broadway office to declaim the fact that RBC is Canada’s worst bank for its investment in the fossil fuel industry.

One of the people with a sign and an intent to bring attention to the facts is Liz Armstrong, who told the Citizen, “That when the group [CCA-DC] started tracking investments by banks. What we discovered appalled us.”

Ms. Armstrong has been involved in the climate issue, since the 1990’s. She has written books, as she told the Citizen, “Mostly about toxicity and breast cancer. Also, about chlorine paper products and their relationship to sanitary products for women and diapers.

“The climate problem has been obvious since the ’90’s. They used to say the ’90’s had to be the turn-around decade. It didn’t turn out that way.”

For clarity: fossil fuels are coal, oil and gas.

Coal is the single largest source of climate temperature rise. It is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels.

Oil releases huge amounts of carbon when burned and is responsible for approximately one third of carbon emissions worldwide. Oil spills from the pipelines in which it is transferred have come as irreparable disasters, ruining lakes, rivers, ocean shorelines and landscapes over and over, with no guarantee about the safety of any new pipelines currently being installed and supported by Canadian banks.

While Natural Gas is hailed as being a cleaner energy source, yet it accounts for one-fifth of the world’s total carbon emissions.

In short, our development and use of fossil fuels, in 2018, amounted to 89 per cent of the globe’s CO2 emissions, according to Climate Earth Communications.

Orangeville youth activist, Olivia Rowan, who led the first student climate, which were held in May and September, is a customer with RBC.

Olivia wrote a letter to RBC, explaining that she has been a client of RBC for many years and is very concerned, along with her fellow students, of the extent to which Canadian banks invest and support the fossil fuel industry. She notes that RBC leads this in Canada and is fifth in the world as an investor in this world-endangering industry.

She and the other students urge RBC to urgently reverse their investment policies, given the danger to the world’s climate and to future generations and that, otherwise, she – ”along with many others,” will close her account and bank with an institution that does not invest in fossil fuels. 

Ms. Armstrong related that Olivia “took the letter to the bank with friends with signs they wouldn’t let her in the bank. They now have a security to stop people come in with sign. Then, Olivia tried to send a registered letter and they returned it to sender, just this past March. Meridian is a co-op bank that does not invest in fossil fuel.”

In fact, Meridian runs an “equity” fund that is “a growth-driven fund designed to … [invest] in transformational technologies, energy transition opportunities, and sustainability leaders across the world.”

RBC and the others “will listen to money,” Ms. Armstrong argued. “If we take our money out of the bank. 2021 was a worldwide focus on finance – to make sure that investment companies were pulling back from fossil fuels, but not fast enough.”

“International Energy Industry – it’s been a friend of the fossil industry but said if we’re going to keep the temperature down, there can’t be any more, new fossil fuel projects. It recommended to stop funding new fossil fuels but they’re still drilling in the arctic and laying new pipelines,” telling us, “There is one bank in the world, in France which has stopped fuelling new projects.”

Additional to the harm being done to the earth and its inhabitants is the need “to get off indigenous territories,” Ms. Armstrong was emphatic. “The point being that any fossil fuels are going push up over the over – that’s why we decided to go in on this march.

“All this protest is not against the staff inside the banks. The staff are very helpful; TD has banks everywhere. Now, you can now bank virtually, do everything online: in taking letters to the bank, we really love the staff, but the corporations have to account for themselves.” 

Brand Robertson, another member of CCA-DC did go in to RBC with a letter. Security met her at the door.

The bank manager, Vicky Downey, did come to meet Ms. Robertson, who told the Citizen, “I spoke to her and gave her the letter without telling her what it was about – I told her there was a compliment about the staff in it – told her I had been a customer of RBC for 55 years.” 

The enthusiasm for fossil fuel investments puzzles Liz Armstrong in this way: “Look at the investment since 2013 or so; fossil fuel has almost flat lined; invest in technology and green energy. In Canada some of us say, basically, that Canada is a petrol state. Now it has to change.

“Trudeau has sent a very strong signal with his new Energy Minister, Steve Guilbeault. Carbon taxes and green subsidies,” defining carbon taxes as “Carbon tax: the more you spend on fossil fuels every time you go to the gas station – on all kinds of fossil fuel – some of it is the carbon tax. It goes into a pool of money and is returned to every family, a fixed amount back from every pool and helps families to shift away from fossil fuel vehicles. More than 66 per cent [of] people get back more than they spend.”

In 2010, Ms. Armstrong began a film festival in Erin, with films connected to the climate.

“I started a little film festival in Guelph and Nancy [Urekar] came and that’s how we met.

“I wrote a book Climate Action for Baby Boomers; it gives them an idea of what they can do.”

Check out the group’s website at climatechangeactiondc.org


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