STATEMENT: CPPIB made at least $3.3 billion in new fossil fuel investments in 2024

Written By Shift Action

SHIFT ACTION FOR PENSION WEALTH & PLANET HEALTH

For Immediate Release: November 15, 2024

STATEMENT: CPPIB made at least $3.3 billion in new fossil fuel investments in 2024

Toronto, ON | Traditional territories of the Wendat, Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chippewas, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation - Amidst a worsening climate crisis and an accelerating energy transition, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments, or CPPIB) has so far committed at least C$3.3 billion to new oil, gas, coal and pipeline assets in 2024.

CPPIB’s Second Quarter Fiscal 2025 results, announced today, show the pension manager committing an additional C$1.2 billion to fossil fuels in the previous fiscal quarter, with its August investment in Tallgrass Energy, which owns and operates a 16,000-km oil and gas pipeline network in the U.S. Midwest. This follows at least five other new CPPIB investments in fossil fuels in 2024.

These high-risk investments lack credible climate transition plans, undermining CPPIB’s net-zero by 2050 commitment and ignoring the increasingly dire scientific warnings that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out to avert catastrophic global heating. 

“CPPIB has a team of smart, dedicated sustainable investment professionals on staff that have sophisticated climate risk analysis tools at their disposal,” says Patrick DeRochie, Senior Manager for Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health. “It’s hard to believe that someone hasn’t already warned senior CPPIB decision-makers that these investments have no credible transition pathway.” 

CPPIB is mandated to invest the $675 billion in assets of the Canada Pension Plan with a view to achieving a maximum rate of return without undue risk of loss. But as the climate crisis worsens and the global energy transition accelerates, fossil fuel investments run directly counter to that mandate.   

CPPIB has a fiduciary duty to protect the retirement security of Canadians young and old, meaning it’s obligated to invest with a long-term view to managing the climate risks that could jeopardize the Canada Pension Plan. Investments in new fossil fuel assets are offside with this duty, as they represent bets against climate safety and could damage the long-term performance of the fund.  

“The climate crisis is here. Temperature records are being shattered, with unnatural disasters causing unprecedented damages, dragging down economic growth and ruining lives and livelihoods in Canada and around the world,” says DeRochie. “It’s unacceptable that CPPIB is exposing our collective national retirement fund to undue risk of loss by continuing to gamble on the oil, gas, coal and pipelines that fuel the climate crisis.”

New fossil fuel-linked investments made by CPPIB this year include:  

Meanwhile, companies already privately owned by CPPIB are investing to expand and prolong the use of fossil fuels. For example, in September, a CPPIB-owned company extended the piping of fracked gas from the Peruvian Amazon for at least another ten years until 2044. Another company co-owned by CPPIB acquired a new gas plant in Texas in September, part of a plan to add over 1,000 megawatts of gas-fired power generation over the next few years. CPPIB also invested US$100 million in a private equity fund in 2022 that was then used to buy fracked gas assets in Texas and finance the controversial proposed Commonwealth LNG export project on the Louisiana coast. Commonwealth LNG is hoping to move forward following this month’s U.S. election that will see an incoming administration promising to dismantle climate policies and environmental protections and expand oil and gas development.

These investments will either become stranded assets in a decarbonizing world, or they’ll prolong and expand the use of fossil fuels in ways that accelerate the climate crisis, threaten the sustainability of the Canada Pension Plan and undermine the retirement security of Canadians. Either option is a bad outcome for CPPIB. 

*This figure is not included in Shift’s estimate of CPPIB’s new fossil fuel investments in 2024 because the deal has not closed and it is not yet possible to determine the value of Allete’s fossil fuel assets as a proportion of the company, or the proportion of CPPIB’s proposed ownership.

Background information:

Contact information for interview requests:

Patrick DeRochie, Senior Manager, Shift Action for Pension Wealth & Planet Health
patrick@shiftaction.ca 
416-576-2701

Adam Scott, Executive Director, Shift Action for Pension Wealth & Planet Health
adamscott@shiftaction.ca
416-347-3858 

Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health is a charitable initiative that works to protect pensions and the climate by bringing together beneficiaries and their pension funds to engage on the climate crisis. 

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