Export Development Canada undermines climate commitments yet again with massive loan renewal for Enbridge

OTTAWA / TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE — Export Development Canada (EDC) has renewed a $200- to $300-million loan to oil and gas giant Enbridge Inc., despite environmental organizations raising the alarm about the serious climate consequences and human rights concerns of this financing. EDC is a federal Crown corporation and Canada’s official export credit agency – it has also been a prolific funder of fossil fuels.

Just days prior to EDC signing the deal, environmental organizations submitted an analysis to EDC asserting that corporate financing to Enbridge Inc., which has significant plans to expand fossil fuel infrastructure, does not align with the Crown corporation’s climate commitments, nor with international obligations to phase out fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In the analysis submitted by Ecojustice on behalf of Above Ground (a project of MakeWay), the Center for International Environmental Law, Environmental Defence Canada, Oil Change International and Stand.earth, major concerns about EDC’s financing of Enbridge are raised. Their submission to EDC highlights the dire impacts of climate change while also citing public reports of human rights risks and violations, and active legal challenges involving Enbridge’s projects from Indigenous groups, impacted communities, and an Attorney General. The submission calls on EDC to examine the implications of continuing to fund fossil fuel companies like Enbridge.

The groups are seriously concerned that EDC believes this type of financing is aligned with its and Canada’s climate commitments and obligations.

The groups question EDC’s decision to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into fossil fuels at a time when Canadians, like billions of people around the world, are experiencing the impact of climate change more frequently, and more severely. EDC’s decision to renew this financing comes just days after the world experienced the hottest day ever recorded and as wildfires are forcing evacuations and causing high-risk air quality in Canada.

Over the last five decades, the cost of weather-related disasters, including wildfires, storms and floods, has risen from tens of millions, to billions of dollars annually — with reports indicating that Canada is one of the countries that will lose the most GDP per capita from failing to address the climate crisis.

Less than a month before renewing its financing to Enbridge, EDC also gave financing to fossil fuel projects, including support of up to $500 million to the Cedar LNG project and up to $200 million to Coastal GasLink Pipeline Partnership Limited for what appears to be expansion plans. Environmental groups (including some of the same groups involved in raising concerns about the Enbridge transaction) also made a submission to EDC urging decision-makers to reject the proposal to finance the Cedar LNG project.

EDC’s continued fossil fuel financing underscores the need for the federal government to meet its commitment and release a strong implementation plan to phase out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including by Crown corporations like EDC.

Maya Menezes, Senior Climate Finance Campaigner at Stand.earth, said: “EDC and the Canadian government are issuing Coastal GasLink its license to pollute — on our dime. While most of us struggle to make ends meet, experiencing an affordability crisis and unnatural disasters from flooding in the East fires in the West, it’s a disgrace that EDC is financing billions for an Indigenous rights-violating project. With leadership of Indigenous land defenders, we are demanding economic justice in a world free from climate chaos and chronic economic instability.”

Tanya Jemec, lawyer at Ecojustice, said: “EDC’s continued support of fossil fuel expansion is extremely worrying and incompatible with Canada’s climate targets. The science is clear – fossil fuels are the main driver of climate change and need to be phased out to ensure a safe and livable climate for ourselves and future generations. Fossil gas and fossil fuel infrastructure, like pipelines, are just entrenching global dependence on dangerous fossil fuels. Canada needs to take action to ensure that Crown corporations, like EDC, have climate transition plans that align with limiting warming below 1.5°C and that they are not financing the expansion of the activities most responsible for climate change. There is no time to delay.”

Karen Hamilton, Director of Above Ground (a project of MakeWay), said: “We cannot wait any longer for EDC to start treating the climate emergency as an emergency. Ottawa should immediately table its promised plan to end public financing of the fossil fuel sector altogether.”

Tamara Morgenthau, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said: “Financing fossil fuels – the primary driver of the climate crisis – is incompatible with Canada’s obligations under international environmental and human rights law and with Export Development Canada’s ownpolicies. As the science makes abundantly clear, there is an urgent need to stop investing in fossil fuels and equitably phase them out. Continuing to finance the expansion and entrenchment of fossil fuels contributes to devastating climate impacts around the world.”

Julia Levin, Associate Director, National Climate at Environmental Defence Canada, said: “Over the last month, as people in Canada have struggled with heatwaves and wildfires, Export Development Canada has funneled nearly $1 billion in financing to the very companies fueling the climate crisis. Not only is this deeply irresponsible behaviour given the climate emergency, this financing flies in the face of the promise the Government of Canada made to stop funding fossils.”

In response to Export Development Canada extending a $200- to $300-million loan to support oil and gas expansion plans, Claire O’Manique, Research Analyst with Oil Change International, said: “It’s outrageous that as communities across Canada face displacement from climate-fueled wildfires, Export Development Canada has provided this refinancing for climate-wrecking fossil fuels, violating the spirit of its pledge to end fossil fuel finance. This money, which could support renewable energy, instead backs a company with a history of Indigenous rights abuses and $16 billion in profits. Canada cannot claim to be the first G20 country to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, while it continues to provide this public finance for fossil fuels. Real action means keeping to their commitments to end international public finance for fossil fuels and ending their support for domestic public finance for fossil fuels, including dangerous distractions like CCS and fossil hydrogen.”

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