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. 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.

Over the last month, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) held public meetings in eight cities across Canada. These CPPIB meetings, which happen once every two years, are a rare opportunity to engage directly with the staff and executives that manage the $647-billion Canada Pension Plan on behalf of over 22 million contributors and beneficiaries.

This quarter, despite the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's net-zero commitment, CPPIB portfolio company Wolf Midstream announced a final investment decision of $1 billion to increase gas production to power the petrochemical industry; CPPIB used $1.2 billion from our national pension fund to buy Tallgrass Energy, a 16,000-km U.S. pipeline network operator; CPPIB become the co-owner of California Resources Corporation, California’s largest oil and gas producer; and CPPIB-owned company Encino Energy described our national pension manager as “key to the story” of fracking expansion in Ohio. Read the full stories in Shift’s recap.

Canada’s national pension manager, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), claims it’s committed to net zero emissions by 2050. Yet CPPIB has tens of billions of dollars invested in fossil fuel companies that lack credible transition plans and are expanding and prolonging the use of oil and gas– the primary drivers of climate-wrecking emissions. The actions of these companies do not appear to align with CPPIB’s climate commitments, and expose our national retirement savings to unacceptable risks as the climate crisis worsens and the transition away from fossil fuels accelerates.

Here’s what some of the CPPIB’s fossil fuel companies have been up to in the last quarter.

CPPIB has tens of billions invested in fossil fuel companies that are expanding and prolonging the use of oil and gas. The actions of these companies do not appear to align with the CPPIB’s climate commitments, and expose our national retirement savings to unacceptable risk as the fossil fuel industry faces terminal decline and the energy transition accelerates.

Here’s what some of the CPPIB’s fossil fuel companies have been up to in the last quarter.

New analysis finds 80 Canadian pension managers with 124 different roles at 76 fossil fuel companies, raising critical beneficiary questions about fiduciary duty and pension administrators’ conflicts of interest on climate-related investment decisions. The report from Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health reveals the deep entanglement between the fossil fuel industry and directors, trustees and investment managers at Canada’s largest public pension funds.

CPP Investments (CPP) has taken an important step today in recognizing that the long-term success of our national retirement fund is directly linked to addressing the climate crisis. While Shift is relieved to see the CPP finally catch up with its peers in making this essential net-zero commitment, the fund does not yet have a credible plan for achieving it and decarbonizing its significant fossil fuel assets.