📉 This week’s Canada Pension Plan climate update: CPPIB is still pouring billions into fossil fuels—despite a year of record heat. Let’s break it down. 🧵

2/ 🙋‍♀️ Tell federal decision-makers: Canadians need climate experts – not fossil fuel interests – on the Canada Pension Plan board. #cdnpoli

win.newmode.net/shiftaction/...

✨ Energized after a powerful few days at our Shift team offsite in Ottawa! Grateful for the space to reflect, align, and think big–from Bill C-5 to Indigenous rights to reimagining our Pension Climate Report Card. We’re leaving focused, inspired, and ready for what’s next. 🚀🌍

One CPP contributor told us:
“I can’t help but wonder if these fossil fuel interests influenced CPPIB’s decision to abandon net-zero by 2050 and continue investing billions in oil and gas expansion.”
📉 Conflict or coincidence? Read the report to decide.

🚨 New report: Entrenched Interests exposes fossil fuel ties on the boards of 5 major Canadian public pension funds – including CPPIB, OTPP, AIMCo, PSP & OMERS. These links pose serious governance risks. #ClimateRisk #Pensions #cdnpoli

BREAKING: Today, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which manages over $714 billion of Canadians’ retirement savings, quietly abandoned its commitment to net-zero by 2050. This is a shocking failure of responsibility from one of the world’s largest public investors.

For the first time, Shift is taking the climate fight straight to company shareholders. We’ve co-filed a shareholder proposal at Brookfield – one of the world’s largest asset managers – urging their staff to stop calling gas a “transition fuel” and to align their business with real net-zero goals.

As the first green shoots stretch toward the sun and spring whispers its arrival, we join billions around the globe in celebrating Earth Day – a moment to reflect, reconnect, and recommit to our shared home.

The analysis "underscores doubts that the sector is able or willing to set itself on a pathway to align with the Paris Agreement goals" and concludes that" Investors with climate mandates will need to question continued positions in these companies."

Investor "engagement" is failing to bring these climate-wrecking polluters in line with a net-zero future, and it's time to remove them from our pension portfolios.

10/ According to CEC's and CA100+'s own benchmarks, these fossil fuel companies are failing to align their business with Paris Agreement goals, across the board. For example, Tourmaline Oil. climateengagement.ca/companies_20...

9/ Most of these companies are also on the Focus List of Climate Engagement Canada (CEC) and Climate Action 100+, investor engagement initiatives to which Canadian pension funds belong. #cdnpoli climateengagement.ca/focus-list/

7/ A Director of PSP Investments, the investment manager for Canada's Public Service Pension Plan, sits on Imperial Oil's board. #cdnpoli www.investpsp.com/en/psp/board/

6/ Canada's largest pension funds hold over US$4.6 billion in the shares of the companies that signed this letter. The Canada Pension Plan alone holds shares worth over US$2.8 billion. #cdnpoli

In fact, CPPIB is the only pension manager to see lower scores on any indicator two years in a row. Its score moved from a C in 2023 to a C-minus in 2024 for both Paris-Aligned Target and Communication of Climate Urgency.

The report reveals which funds are well-positioned to step up as political headwinds and worsening climate impacts test the resolve of Canada’s pension giants. It also exposes a troubling divergence between leading and lagging institutions.

The report includes case studies on Canadian pension funds investing your retirement savings in gas companies with hydrogen projects that are risky and unlikely to succeed. By continuing to fund gas companies, pension managers are deepening the climate crisis and putting retirement security at risk.

Gas companies claim they can convert their infrastructure to use hydrogen – but these greenwashed claims do not stand up to scrutiny. Phasing out gas is required to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change – and hydrogen is unable to replace it.

9 of Canada’s largest pension managers co-own 22 private gas companies operating nearly 350,000 km of gas pipelines around the world. Gas is a primary cause of the climate crisis–so these pension-owned gas assets face losing value, becoming stranded as the energy transition accelerates.