Canadian banks have provided $59.572 billion to fracking companies since the Paris agreement

@QuitRbc projected this image on RBC’s central branch in Montreal on the morning of April 8, the date of the bank’s annual shareholders meeting.

Canadian banks are among the top financiers of fracking.

According to the Banking on Climate Chaos Report 2021 (page 74), Canadian banks have provided $59.572 billion to fracking companies between 2016 and 2020:

Scotiabank ($18.261 billion), RBC ($16.009 billion), TD ($13.827 billion), Bank of Montreal ($8.560 billion) and CIBC (2.915 billion).

That same report highlights (on page 136) that ExxonMobil ranks as the largest current and future producer of fracked oil and gas company in the world:

ExxonMobil has 3,529.97 million (3.5 billion) barrels of oil equivalent in shale reserves currently under production and 18,148.77 million (18.1 billion) barrels of projected shale expansion (projected production to 2050 from wells not yet drilled).

This past week, the Colombian National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) confirmed that ExxonMobil had been awarded a contract to frack near the community of Puerto Wilches in the department of Santander.

The company will put $53 million towards their Platero fracking pilot project in this ecologically sensitive Magdalena Medio region of Colombia.

Naomi Klein signed this letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling for a global ban on fracking highlighting that fracking for fossil fuels “torpedoes our global efforts to tackle climate change and violates basic human rights.”

And David Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and he environment, specifically has called on Colombia to prohibit fracking “in light of its obligations under constitutional, international, human rights and environmental law.”

Six members of the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking (Alianza Colombia Libre de Fracking) have death threats against them.

Webinar on April 29

To hear directly from these Colombian environmental defenders (who have all recently received death threats) speak about their opposition to ExxonMobil and fracking, please join us on Thursday April 29 by registering here.

Ivan Madero, Yuli Velasquez, Oscar Sampayo, Yuvelis Natalia Morales