2mo ago

Canada Pension Plan Investments drops net-zero target after initially aiming for 2050

www.cbc.ca /news/climate/canada-pension-plan-investments-net-zero-target-1.7540234

Canada Pension Plan Investments has dropped a net-zero by 2050 target for carbon emissions, according to an annual report released on Wednesday, following several Canadian financial institutions that have backtracked on climate commitments.

Several major Canadian banks, including BMO, TD Bank and CIBC, have also backtracked on climate commitments this year, announcing they were leaving a Net-Zero Banking Alliance backed by the United Nations.

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Dropping environmental concerns from a pension profile has got to be the worst sort of irony. What good is retiring with slightly more money if the world you're retiring into is literally on fire?
- And think about what you're leaving behind.
- Because the world wouldn't be literally on fire, that's hyperbole.
  
  Hi its only May and my province is already literally on fire to the point where my sports games are getting cancelled from air quality cconcerns.
  
  Not necessarily the case here but the word “literally” can be used figuratively so what’s the point of your comment anyway?
Canada is a petrostate after all.
"Recent legal developments in Canada have introduced, kind of, new considerations around how net-zero commitments are interpreted, so that's caused us to change a little bit how we talk about it, but nothing's changed on what we're actually doing."
I wonder if buddy intended his statement to have that double meaning.
The comments by Graham came as the fund reported a net return of 9.3 per cent for its latest fiscal year, falling short of its benchmark portfolios' return of 10.9 per cent.
clearly the net zero commitment was the cause /s
They have a fiduciary duty, and no economist who holds themselves to a high standard believes in peak oil, its a fairy tale created by politicians.
There are billions of people on the planet who will take every molecule of energy you produce, Chinas now literally stockpiling coal.
- China is building >30 new reactors, as many as all other countries combined, because coal is more suited to metallurgical applications than electrical production. Canada should be doing the same, build a baseload of nuclear and hydro with variable demands covered by renewables. If you want to pick a fossil fuel boogieman look at the US, Russia, and the middle east.
Maybe I'm missing the article, but I think this is overblown. What's changed is that financial firms can no longer make unsubstantiated claims about climate action, but the burden to do so opens them up to potential liability with no real upside. He even said that literally nothing has changed with how they plan to invest, but they don't want to make a claim that they can't support with strong evidence.
This makes sense. And it's not a big deal.
Or that's my reading of it, anyway.
If a more important priority than not killing all of you and your descendants, or at least not greatly increasing their cost of survival, then fuck you and your fucking children.
War on russia was already path to alternatives. Doing nothing to oppose USA war on us, is new excuse to fuck us all.
- I think there were some garbled words here.
  
  Fixed
IMO this is fine, it's not really a pension plan's role to be trying to manipulate what industries are doing well. A pension plan should be primarily focused on getting good long-term returns.
If you want that to not happen then you should focus on policies that make carbon-producing industries not produce good long-term returns in the first place. Then the pension plans and everyone else will stop investing in them as a natural consequence.
If they remain profitable and your pension plan stops investing in them, that just means you're handing free money to the people who remain willing to invest in them.
- Organizations with enough money do have the power to influence humanism. It makes roi in long term if human sustainability actually is winning policy. It is only a mistake to backtrack on financially if raping planet asap is policy to support.
Tough call on this one.
Net neutral is essential but so is a strong retirement safety net. With demographic decline, increasing lifespans and whatever other fun the world throws our way in the next while... Well, you want that bad boy maxed out.
I'm also super curious how some of the cop's investments are classified. If memory serves, it owns a chunk of highways and airports so how are those calculated in terms of carbon?

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