Canadian banks provided US$100 billion in fossil fuel funding: report
TORONTO — Canadian banks provided almost US$104 billion in fossil fuel funding last year despite the urgent need to reduce emissions, says the latest annual Banking on Climate Chaos report.
The report out Monday from a coalition of climate groups said the total includes US$28.2 billion from Royal Bank of Canada to place it seventh globally and US$24 billion fromScotiabank to rank 10th.
The top 60 banks together committed US$708 billion.
For most of Canada’s five biggest banks, 2023 was among their lowest levels of oil and gas financing in the eight years since the Paris climate agreement.
The Bank of Montreal had its outright lowest year of fossil fuel financing since 2016, with US$15.8 billion. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toronto-Dominion and RBC each had their lowest with the exception of pandemic year 2020, while it was the fourth-lowest year for Scotiabank.
While reduced, the numbers are still stark, said Richard Brooks, climate finance director at Stand.earth.
“There’s still massive amounts of money on the scale of, you know, tens of billions of dollars that are flowing into extreme forms of oil and gas, that are flowing into expansion projects that lock us in for a long time.”
Canadian banks understand their important role in helping lead an orderly transition to a low-carbon future, said Canadian Bankers Association spokeswoman Maggie Cheung in a statement.
“Firm commitments are required to accelerate clean economic growth and that’s why banks are implementing climate action plans that set specific targets to meet the demands of this global challenge.”
Bank climate targets are fairly long-term, including their net-zero emissions goal of 2050. Only BMO has set an absolute reduction target before then.
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