LASER TALK: Support for Climate Aligned Finance Act
A majority of Canadians support climate-aligned financial policies. Recent polling shows that 65% of Canadians desire sustainable finance policies, with over 78% supporting measures to address greenwashing, and 80% expressing distrust in banks or financial institutions to deliver on their green promises.

CAFA is endorsed by over 120 civil society organizations and academics.

MPs from four different parties have backed a parliamentary motion urging the government to use legislative and regulatory tools to align Canada’s financial system with the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, the Climate Aligned Finance Act (Bill S-243, also known as CAFA) is supported by five petitions in the House of Commons.

LASER TALK: Keeping Pace with Global Peers
Canada must implement robust climate-aligned financial policies to avoid falling behind. Indeed, international trading partners like the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Australiahave already adopted significant climate-aligned financial policies.

Within Canada, provinces like Quebec have taken proactive steps, presenting a valuable opportunity for federal-provincial alignment on climate initiatives.

In addition, CAFA enjoys an endorsement from international experts such as Eric Usher (Head, UN Environment Program Finance Initiative) and Thierry Philipponat (Chief Economist at Finance Watch).

LASER TALK: The Policy Canada Needs
Canadians expect their elected officials to take decisive action on climate change, with the financial sector playing a key role. To this end, we would like to highlight the following principles from CAFA:

• Duties for Directors and Officers. Establishing a duty for directors, officers, and administrators to align entities with climate commitments.
• Alignment of Purposes. Aligning the purposes of federally regulated entities, crown corporations, and the financial regulator with climate commitments.
• Transition Plans and Transparency. Requiring the development of climate transition plans, plans, targets, and progress reports on meeting climate commitments, with annual reporting requirements and increased transparency by making them public and freely accessible.
• Board Expertise and Conflict Avoidance. Ensuring climate expertise on certain boards of directors and avoiding conflicts of interest.
• Proportional Capital Adequacy Requirements. Making capital adequacy requirements proportional to the microprudential and macroprudential climate risks generated by financial institutions.
• Alignment of Financial Products. Amending taxation and bankruptcy laws to incentivize financial products that align with climate commitments and disincentivize those that do not.

Ecojustice CAFA Two pager

Hello, Senator [Name],

My name is [Your Name], and I’m a member of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada, calling from [City/Province]. I’m reaching out to urge you to vote in favor of Bill S-243, the Climate-Aligned Finance Act (CAFA), currently before the Senate Banking Committee.

As a senator, your constitutional duty is to protect minorities who are not well represented in the elected chamber. No group is more vulnerable and less protected than children and future generations. Swift, bold climate action is essential to protecting them, and CAFA the missing link in aligning Canada’s financial sector with our climate goals.

<<<If you’re part of the Senators for Climate Solutions, I hope you recognize Bill S-243 as a key climate solution. After over a year of being stalled in committee, I urge you to help move this bill forward.>>>

Most Canadians support sustainable finance policies, with 65% backing climate-aligned financial measures. CAFA has the support of over 120 civil society organizations and cross-party backing in the House of Commons.

Please act to ensure CAFA progresses to the next stage. Thank you for your time.

———————————-

Bonjour, Sénateur [Nom],

Je m’appelle [Votre nom] et je suis membre de Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada. J’appelle de [Ville/Province]. Je vous appelle pour vous demander de voter en faveur du projet de loi S-243, le Climate-Aligned Finance Act (CAFA), actuellement examiné par la commission bancaire du Sénat.

En tant que sénateur, votre devoir constitutionnel est de protéger les minorités qui ne sont pas bien représentées dans la chambre élue. Aucun groupe n’est plus vulnérable et moins protégé que les enfants et les générations futures. Une action climatique rapide et audacieuse est essentielle pour les protéger, et le CAFA est le chaînon manquant pour aligner le secteur financier canadien sur nos objectifs climatiques.

<<< Si vous faites partie des Sénateurs pour les solutions climatiques, j’espère que vous reconnaissez que le projet de loi S-243 est une solution clé pour le climat. Après plus d’un an de blocage en commission, je vous demande instamment d’aider à faire avancer ce projet de loi. >>>

La plupart des Canadiens appuient les politiques de financement durable, et 65 % d’entre eux soutiennent les mesures financières axées sur le climat. L’ACFA bénéficie du soutien de plus de 120 organisations de la société civile et de l’appui de tous les partis à la Chambre des communes.

Nous vous demandons d’agir pour que l’ACFA passe à l’étape suivante. Je vous remercie de m’avoir accordé votre temps.

Traduit avec DeepL.com (version gratuite)

Ideas for msg:

• I am calling you to ask that you vote in favor of bill S-243, the Climate aligned finance act (CAFA) currently before the senate banking committee.
• As a senator, your constitutional duty is to protect minorities not well represented in the elected chamber of parliament. There is no minority who is less represented and protected than children and future generations. Swift and bold climate action is necessary to protect them. The missing piece of Canada’s climate policy lies in aligning the financial sector with our climate goals.
• (For some): As a member of senators for climate solutions, I urge you to recognize bill s-243 (CAFA) for the climate solution that it is. Please, reach across differences and act collectively to ensure this bill moves forward swiftly to the next stage after lingering in committee for more than a year.

Evidence of support for CAFA:

• A majority of Canadians support climate-aligned financial policies. Recent polling shows that 65% of Canadians desire sustainable finance policies, with over 78% supporting measures to address greenwashing, and 80% expressing distrust in banks or financial institutions to deliver on their green promises.
• CAFA is endorsed by over 120 civil society organizations and academics.
• MPs from four different parties have backed a parliamentary motion urging the government to use legislative and regulatory tools to align Canada’s financial system with the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, the Climate Aligned Finance Act (Bill S-243, also known as CAFA) is supported by five petitions in the House of Commons.

Here are arguments for why CAFA is still necessary after OSFI’s B-15 guidelines (the only “regulation” that applies to banks regarding climate related financial risks)…. Basically existing regulation is about how climate risks will impact the financial institution, not how the financial institution is impacting the climate, which is what CAFA focuses on.

OSFI is compelling firms to quantify and disclose their climate risks without actually taking action to limit the sources of that risk in the first place. 

OSFI’s guidelines are not ambitious or stringent enough to properly attenuate stranded asset risk in Canada’s financial system. In particular, we are concerned about the following overarching issues:

1. Failure to consider systemic risk, double materiality, or integrate the precautionary principle;
2. Failure to go beyond self-regulation and outline specific normative guidelines centred on a 1.5 degree pathway; The final version referenced 1.5 degrees only with respect to scenario analysis using a 1.5 degree scenario (in a whole range of other scenarios),
3. Failure to consider other regulatory instruments such as capital requirements. 
4. Failure to integrate appropriate timelines reflecting the urgency of the crisis. Many key aspects of the guideline are not in force. For example, waiting until 2027 to implement scenario analysis and disclosure of Scope 3 emissions, is far too late.

Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development’s criticism of OSFI’s B-15:

2 reports from the Commissioner of the Environment point out that OSFI’s approach will not bring in the transition.

• The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to the Parliament of Canada recently reported that “the federal government is not on track to meet the 2030 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% below the 2005 level by 2030.”
• Moreover, another report released this year states“OSFI’s strategy to tackle climate related financial risks aims to improve the resilience of federally regulated financial institutions, but will remain short of incentivizing the transition to a net-zero emissions economy.”
• And OSFI has “not yet fully considered its emerging roles and responsibilities under the Federal Sustainable Development Act”