I'll bet you didn't know you own billions of dollars in coal stocks

Sometimes huge issues just slide along under the radar until, all of a sudden, they blow up. The shock can come from a brown envelope slid under a door, a “scoop” in the media, or an opposition politician discovering a serious failure in government.

I’m waiting for an explosion to occur at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. This organization has assets of $287-billion and provides pensions for the 19-million Canadians who pay into it.

The Investment Board is dangerously gambling and putting our future in danger by investing billions-of-dollars in risky fossil fuel companies. Moreover, the Board is knee deep in unethical investments in the coal industry.

Coal sludge from a North Carolina site mined by Duke Energy.

The collapse of a huge cooling pond dam at a coal mine in North Carolina during Hurricane Matthew last month didn’t cause a stir in Canada, but it should have. The facility in question is owned by Duke Energy – perhaps the most vilified energy company in the United States – and the Pension Fund Investment Board is heavily invested in Duke.

Earlier, a Duke pond leaked dirty effluent into a North Carolina river.  The company paid a $102-million fine continues to face numerous law suits while it is involved in a $3-billion clean-up. The loss had an impact on the Canadian investments.

Why are our environmental groups supporting weak climate targets?

Canada is far behind many other countries when it comes to meeting its carbon reduction targets. We have an “inadequate” ranking on the international mechanism tracking carbon emitters, says Climate Action Tracker.  Many other countries/regions, such as Norway, the European Union, the United States and China, are well ahead of us.

Meanwhile, the federal government’s recently announced that all Canadian jurisdictions must adopt a carbon pricing scheme by 2018 with a minimum price of $10 per tonne. The price must rise to reach $50 per tonne by 2022. The goal of reducing emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 will not get Canada anywhere close to its promises to the United Nations.

The Canadian targets are “nothing short of a disaster for the climate,” says Green Party leader Elizabeth May.

Canadians probably believe that our major environmental groups are busy lobbying and pushing the federal and provincial governments to do much more. But no, this is not the case.

Strangely, while many individual groups carry out excellent and productive projects, the country’s environmental community is doing very little to pressure governments to do a better job.

No group criticizing the government

A survey of the top 20 or so environmental organizations shows – from what I could find – that not one group is conducting an ongoing, strategic campaign lobbying the federal government for not doing more.

Young people on Parliament Hill protesting pipeline construction, but when it comes to fighting climate change, environmental groups have decided not to campaign against the Liberal government. 

Some groups have made one-off statements criticizing the government, but these do not constitute a campaign.

Greenpeace’s Keith Stewart did say that “thirty per cent by 2030 isn’t good enough. We have to go farther.”  But it does not seem that the organization will be lobbying governments re carbon levels.