Stop funding climate chaos: Holding Canada’s banks and financial institutions accountable
After decades of denying that climate change is real, Canada’s big polluters and their investors (like the financial and fossil fuel giants) have clued in that consumers want greener products. But instead of pivoting to greener, cleaner products, these companies have simply turned the page in their playbook: to misleading the public with claims that they’re making the changes necessary to protect the planet — when they’re not.
When polluters and their investors greenwash, people and the planet lose.
Every dollar that goes toward false solutions is a dollar that isn’t going toward real ones, delaying our transition to a green, low-carbon economy at a time when we need to be accelerating it.
This missing piece of Canada’s climate policy is regulating our financial system to align with a climate-safe future.
Years of evidence has shown us that banks can’t regulate themselves. Canada’s banks and insurance firms are among the world’s largest funders of oil, gas, and coal. At the same time, many of these financial institutions have made commitments to reach a net-zero emissions future — a goal that amounts to nothing more than greenwashing if institutions continue to invest in fossil fuels. They are funding carbon pollution that is putting all of us at risk and making our daily lives increasingly unaffordable.
Without common-sense principles aligning our financial institutions with our climate commitments, our financial sector will continue to actively work against Canada’s —and everyday folks’— best interest by maintaining the status quo and investing in polluting industries that are making the climate crisis worse for everyone.
Climate-aligned finance principles would shift Canada’s financial sector priorities from short-term gains to long-term sustainability.
It’s clear we need stronger regulations that include stricter anti-greenwashing rules and climate-aligned finance laws, to hold our financial institutions accountable and finally align Canada’s financial systems with our climate goals, and realities.
Ecojustice is fighting on your behalf to ensure strict rules and enforcement measures prevent companies, like our big banks, other financial institutions, and oil and gas giants, from lying to consumers and harming our environment in the process.
It’s time to tell Canada’s biggest polluters and financial institutions that enough is enough.
Tell party leaders to include climate-aligned finance principles in their electoral platforms now.