RBC releases their “Net-Zero Report” as Coastal GasLink drills under Wedzin Kwa

Last week, Wet’suwet’en land defender Molly Wickham (Sleydo’) spoke on a Decolonial Solidarity call about RBC-financed Coastal GasLink drilling under the Wedzin Kwa river on Wet’suwet’en territory without free, prior and informed consent.

She highlighted: “[The drilling at the site of our sacred headwaters] is happening now. The salmon are spawning in the river and you can actually hear the drilling happening from kilometres away. You can feel it in the ground, in the earth, from kilometres away. The salmon are spawning and you can feel the vibration of the drilling happening.”

Now, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has released their statement on its 2030 interim emissions reduction targets.

Notably the words “Coastal GasLink”, “pipeline”, “Indigenous”, “land defenders” and “human rights” do not appear in RBC’s 16-page Net-Zero Report.

Video: An RCMP officer points an assault rifle at land defenders and journalists during a militarized raid on Wet’suwet’en territory, November 19, 2021.

Stand.earth comments: “Unfortunately, RBC’s latest net-zero emissions pledges are essentially just more greenwashing as the bank continues to bankroll high-polluting sectors like fossil fuels. The bank released only ‘intensity-based’ targets for its energy sector clients, essentially which are a license to continue to pollute.”

Stand.earth has documented: “RBC is among top commercial banks providing the CGL project with working capital, including CAD $275 million in project finance, a co-financed $6.5 billion loan, a $40 million corporate loan, and $200 million in co-financed working capital – while acting as financial advisor for the pipeline.”

And according to the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International report: Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon (page 16), the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline could produce 125 million metric tons of CO2 pollution annually.

Construction on the pipeline is scheduled to be completed in 2023 and would be in service for a minimum of 25 years (to 2048). The pipeline will feed the LNG Canada export terminal, which could have a lifespan of 25 years. Given gas pipelines can have a lifespan of 50 years, Coastal GasLink could conceivably be operational through to 2073. 

Click here for more on the Decolonial Solidarity day of action on November 5 that will demand RBC defund Coastal GasLink.

Decolonial Solidarity tweet.