The waning of concern about climate change may also be because Canada
has so far dodged many of the bullets climate change usually fires in
our direction. Events like 100-degree Fahrenheit temperatures in Siberia
or inferno-level 54 Celsius (130F) in Death Valley, California, seem
less threatening if there are no headlines about fires, floods and
hurricanes in this country. Until smoke from the west coast fires began
drifting east this week, this summer’s drought in New Brunswick and
parts of Nova Scotia was about the worst of it for Canadians.
But while good luck and the pandemic pushed climate change down the
issues agenda, the federal government’s economic response to COVID-19
also provided cover for more subsidies to the oil and gas industry. In
April, the feds gave $1.7 billion to clean up abandoned wells in Alberta
and its two neighbouring provinces, and $750 million for emissions
reduction measures, costs that should be borne by the industry. The
Liberals also offered expanded credit support for small and medium-sized
energy companies through the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC)
and Export Development Canada (EDC).
In each case, the contributing factors are different, but an underlying theme runs through the story: Hotter, drier seasons, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, have made the world more prone to erupt in flames.
“We don’t have a fire problem; we have many fire problems,” said Stephen J. Pyne, an emeritus professor at Arizona State University who studies wildfires and their history. “One, obviously, is a deep one. It has to do with fossil fuels and climate.”
Here’s a look at some of the worst recent blazes and how humans played a role in them.
Wildfires are devastating the American West, but the United States isn’t the only place on Earth that’s burning. This year, other countries have also experienced their worst wildfires in decades, if not all of recorded history.
In each case, the contributing factors are different, but an underlying theme runs through the story: Hotter, drier seasons, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, have made the world more prone to erupt in flames.
“We don’t have a fire problem; we have many fire problems,” said Stephen J. Pyne, an emeritus professor at Arizona State University who studies wildfires and their history. “One, obviously, is a deep one. It has to do with fossil fuels and climate.”
Here’s a look at some of the worst recent blazes and how humans played a role in them.
With “multiple mega-fires burning more than three million acres”, and millions of people in California, Oregon, and Washington State facing a mix of toxic air, extreme heat, and rolling blackouts, a month of summer wildfires is bringing some of the most dire predictions from climate scientists into day-to-day reality.
“The crisis in the nation’s most populous state is more than just an accumulation of individual catastrophes,” the New York Times reports. “It is also an example of something climate experts have long worried about, but which few expected to see so soon: a cascade effect, in which a series of disasters overlap, triggering or amplifying each other.”
“The challenge we’re facing now is the extreme fire events that we believe are climate-induced,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. And “the effects have been painfully felt,” CNN adds. “At least seven people have died since the start of this year’s fire season, according to Cal Fire, with thousands of homes reduced to embers. Many communities have had to order mandatory evacuations, and more than 170,000 recently went without power to prevent future blazes.”
(This post was first published October 11, 2019. It is now updated and republished September 9, 2020.)
After decades of ongoing climate talks, in December of 2015, some 195 countries approved the Paris Agreement, the first ever global climate accord .
The call was for an all-hands-on-deck approach—governments at all levels, individuals, private industry, and the big financial institutions—to tackling climate change, the largest threat ever faced by humanity. In the months that followed the signing, the world felt a sense of hope, optimism and relief. We were finally going to do “something” about climate change.
But now, some four years later, the initial enthusiasm has fizzled out and the Paris Agreement is on life support. Governments and world leaders lack the political courage to support the more ambitious climate action needed to match the urgency and scope of the climate crisis. The world continues to subsidize fossil fuel expansion and emissions continue to rise—1.6% in 2017 and 2.7% in 2018. However, less well known is the role of the banking industry in financing the climate breakdown.
Big Banks Financing the Climate Breakdown
Image: Banking on Climate Change 2020 Report
The Banking on Climate Change Report for the first time “adds up lending and underwriting from 33 global banks to the fossil fuel industry as a whole. The findings are stark: these Canadian, Chinese, European, Japanese, and U.S. banks have financed fossil fuels with $2.7 trillion since the Paris Agreement was adopted (2016–2019), with financing on the rise each year.”
The video which follows does an exceptionally clear job of examining investments the banks have made in fossil fuel industry infrastructure since the Paris Accord. It provides a compelling case why you should stop banking with any of the big banks and points out how to divest from your bank. Please watch and say goodbye to your “trusted bank.” It simply doesn’t deserve your trust.
Video Description: We all know the impact that fossil fuels, backed by huge government tax subsidies are having on the climate of our planet. What’s less well publicised, and arguably even disguised by the top banks, are the mind boggling levels of investment that they have also been pouring into Oil, Coal and Gas, even since the Paris Accord of 2015.
Between 2016 and 2019, Canada’s 5 large banks loaned over a third of a trillion dollars to fossil fuel producers. Our major banks are partnering with the fossil fuel industry and continue to be aligned with climate disaster. RBC (Royal Bank), TD (Toronto-Dominion), JPMorgan Chase, Bank of Montreal and CIBC (Imperial Bank of Commerce) are the top 5 bankers of the Tar Sands projects.
In an era of climate emergency, this is morally reprehensible and unconscionable!
Paris Agreement
The stated objective of the Paris Agreement is clear in Article 2.1.a:
Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.
The banking industry is out of sync with the Paris Agreement and “with the direction the world needs to take, and the emissions trajectory we need to get there. Banks must align with that trajectory by ending financing for expansion…while committing overall to phase out all financing for fossil fuels on a Paris Agreement-compliant timeline ~ Banking on Climate Change Report. — for discussion
