National Bank of Canada
Last Rated in Nov 2024
Your bank is failing on climate responsibility.
National Bank continues to finance the oil and gas sector. As of the end of 2023, it had CAD $3.6 billion in outstanding loans to the industry and provided CAD $385 million in new lending.
We rated the bank climate irresponsible despite the fact that it is among the leaders in financing renewable energy projects (CAD $11 billion to date) because no amount of new fossil fuel lending is compatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
The bank’s exclusion policy applies only to new lending for thermal coal and Arctic oil and gas, which, in our view, is insufficient.
The bank has measured the greenhouse gas emissions impact of its lending and set several science-based targets, including near-term goals.
We would like to see the bank include all scopes of financed emissions in its targets and have them independently validated.
Your bank may be ignoring the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement set the goal to stay under 1.5°C of warming for very good reasons. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an increase of just a couple of degrees more could lead to "substantial species extinction, large risks to global and regional food security", and an inability to work outside — or even live — in some areas of the world. Our world will become unrecognizable as ocean dead zones, floods, and extreme weather fuel social and economic disruption.
Start to Bank Green Today
Banks live and die on their reputations. Mass movements of money to fossil-free competitors puts those reputations at grave risk. By moving your money to a sustainable financial institution, you will:
Send a message to your bank that it must defund fossil fuels
Join a fast-growing movement of consumers standing up for their future
Take a critical climate action with profound effects