A major report released today has found that three of Canada’s largest banks, Scotiabank, TD, and RBC, are amongst the top ten banks in the world funding climate change.

The effects of climate chaos will be far worse than previously predicted. To keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees, by the year 2030, just over a decade away, governments and corporations will need to make drastic changes to reduce carbon emissions to 45% of 2010 levels. Despite the immense scope and magnitude of the climate crisis, these three Canadian banks continue to pour billions of dollars into fossil fuels -- even after the Paris Accord was signed.

But it doesn’t have to be this way -- these banks could fund clean, green energy projects instead, and stop bankrolling projects that endanger our future. It’s time for Scotiabank and RBC to phase out funding in fossil fuels, and ensure that the rise in global temperature does not exceed 1.5 degrees!

Storms, droughts, wildfires, loss of species, climate-related poverty, widespread displacement, spreading of diseases. These are only some of the devastating, imminent effects of climate change predicted, as a harrowing 2018 United Nations report revealed.

And according to a recent report published by some of the world’s leading environmental action groups, including Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, and Indigenous Environmental Network, the world’s largest, most powerful banks are speeding up the climate chaos. Almost two thousand companies with investments in fossil fuel extraction, infrastructure, and power, received a shocking $1.912 trillion from 33 global banks since the Paris Accord was adopted.

Although overall financing from the 33 banks has fallen slightly in the coal mining and power sectors, the 2019 Fossil Fuel Report Card revealed that global private banks have a long way to go to become “consistent with a pathway toward low greenhouse gas emissions,” one of the Paris Accord’s directives.

It is environmentally and financially risky and unsound for Canadian banking giants TD, Scotiabank and RBC to continue to fund extreme fossil fuel projects and companies, which include the Alberta tar sands, Arctic and ultra-deepwater oil. If these banks do not start defunding these climate change businesses and comply with global requirements to limit global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees, we will all pay the price.

We have heard our members loud and clear that they want us to address the harmful effects of climate change. Just this week, we asked our members whether they think SumOfUs should support the Canadian Green New Deal -- a plan to eliminate poverty and create millions of jobs while tackling the biggest threat of our time: climate change. And 91% of you said yes. We have just signed on to support some major actions this spring and summer to make sure that the Green New Deal is in Canadian discourse ahead of the Federal elections in October.

Will you call on Scotiabank, TD and RBC to stop funding any fossil fuel expansion projects and phase out existing funding on a timeline that works with limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees?

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