Tell CPP to explain why you own a fracking oil company

The Canada Pension Plan, our pension plan, spent $900 million of our money to bail out the struggling Canadian oil company Encana by buying its Colorado fracking operation. We own an oil company that fracks in Colorado’s Denver Julesberg (DJ) Basin. Where local communities have been fighting to impose moratoriums on plans to drill 15,000 wells.

It may not end there. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board former CEO, Mark Wiseman said “I don’t think we’d go buy Exxon, but we might buy a piece of Exxon if it were for sale.”  A company that not only contributes to climate change directly but has also been accused of funding climate change deniers.

This is the climate cavalier attitude of Canada’s largest public investor.

An attitude that is costing us and one that we must change. Sign the petition to tell Finance Ministers to climate risk proof your pension.

Friends of the Earth Canada asked Corporate Knights to look into investments of the five biggest public sector pension funds. Turns out they are foregoing $20 billion profit every year by not fully incorporating climate risks into investment decisions. The Canada Pension Plan likely missed out on US$6.5 billion in profits by sticking with climate polluting industries.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has also investigated pension funds and found the CPP is more heavily invested in fossil fuels than other funds. This means the CPP is more exposed to climate risk. Fossil fuel producers or pipeline companies make up about 22% of the CPP’s Canadian investments and about 6% of its foreign investments. In these same investments, CPP owns 34 companies involved in the worst climate polluting industries – coal mining and coal burning utilities.