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Many pension funds, including AIMCo, publicly recognize the financial risks of climate change and claim to screen their investments for environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. If ever there was a project that fails a credible ESG screen, it’s CGL. The project’s environmental risks and failure to respect Indigenous rights should disqualify it for investment for any firm claiming to invest responsibly.

CGL will massively increase carbon pollution over the 30-year lifespan of the project, on top of even more emissions when the gas is burned downstream. This comes at a time when scientists have repeatedly warned that emissions must drop rapidly within this decade in order to avoid the catastrophic global impacts of a warming world.

Withinvestors andcentral bankers sounding the alarm about climate risk, financing new long-lived fossil-fuel infrastructure should be seen as a foolhardy venture. Investors can reasonably assume that new measures to curb both the consumption and extraction of fossil fuels will negatively impact returns over time. Recent research reveals that technological disruption and new climate policies could strand as much as $4-trillion in fossil-fuel investment by 2035 alone, a particular risk for export-dependent countries like Canada.

CGL is also under fire for its failure to respect Indigenous rights and title. While TC Energy has signed agreements with band councils along the pipeline route, the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who hold authority over their unceded traditional territories, have long opposed the pipeline.