Banks’ Net-Zero Lending Ambitions Hit Snags in Oil-Rich Canada
- Bank of Montreal is only lender to plan absolute emissions cut
- Royal Bank lags on setting interim targets for reductions
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Canada’s banks have only just started on the path toward zeroing-out the carbon emissions of the companies they lend to, and already they’re running into conflicts between what climate activists and ESG investors want and what Canada’s oil-dependent economy demands of them.
Fossil-fuel lending is a tiny part of the loan businesses for many banks outside of Canada that have also pledged to reach net-zero emissions in lending by 2050. They can replace that business with other sources of profit over time.