Scotiabank no longer a member of oil and gas lobby group CAPP & More News Here

The most up-to-date symposium, held simply final month, nonetheless had Scotiabank’s title connected to it, although CAPP spokesman Jay Averill mentioned that will not be the case going ahead.

“CAPP’s agreement with Scotiabank on the Energy Symposium was completed this year and we are grateful for their support of Canada’s natural gas and oil industry,” Averill mentioned in an e-mail. “We have already started the work in finalizing a partner for next year’s Energy Symposium.”

Scotiabank — which was the one one of Canada’s Big Five banks to carry a membership with CAPP — is a member of many business and enterprise associations in Canada and globally. On its web site, the financial institution says that whereas its affiliation with these teams “does not imply an endorsement of positions or public statements,” the financial institution regularly critiques its memberships “to ensure consistency with Bank-held public policy positions.”

Its departure from CAPP comes as monetary establishments are beneath rising international strain to account for their very own function in contributing to local weather change as funders of fossil gas corporations.

Scotiabank itself got here beneath hearth simply final month at its annual common assembly, as shareholders and environmental teams criticized the establishment for not transferring quick sufficient on the local weather entrance. While the corporate has made quite a few local weather change commitments, together with setting preliminary targets for reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, one shareholder on the assembly identified that Scotiabank’s financing of fossil fuels elevated by 87 per cent to $30 billion in 2021.

According to a report from The Rainforest Action Network — a San Francisco-based environmental group — Scotiabank is the ninth largest lender globally to the fossil fuels sector (Royal Bank of Canada, the one different Canadian financial institution to make the record, ranks fifth), and has offered greater than $195 billion to oil and gas corporations for the reason that signing of the U.N. Paris Climate Accord in 2015.

“Banks and insurers are increasingly in the crosshairs of climate activists, because they’re providing the funding that keeps the fossil fuel machine running. And Canadian banks are some of the worst in the world when it comes to financing fossil fuels,” mentioned Keith Stewart, senior power strategist with Greenpeace Canada.

Stewart added he is happy that Scotiabank will no longer be supporting CAPP via membership dues, however mentioned his group is looking on the financial institution to decide to cease funding new oil and gas initiatives solely.

Scotiabank is just not the one high-profile exit from CAPP in recent times. In 2020, French oil and gas big Total dropped out of the lobby group citing a “misalignment” between the group’s public positions and these expressed in Total’s local weather insurance policies.

Global power big Royal Dutch Shell remains to be a member of CAPP, however has beforehand urged the group to help each the Paris local weather accord and the pricing of carbon to encourage greenhouse gas emission reductions.

U.Okay.-based BP plc has additionally warned CAPP that the lobby group’s insurance policies are solely “partially aligned” with the oil firm’s personal local weather positions and its ambitions to turn out to be a net-zero producer by 2050.