Climate-Conscious Taylor Swift Superfans Win Tickets to the Eras Tour through the Unite the Swifties Campaign

OCT. 28, 2024, Tkaronto, Ontario – Today, the winners of the innovative climate campaign – Unite the Swifties for climate justice – were announced.

Pilar Pedrinelli (Toronto), Michelle Lu (Vancouver), and Avery Parisien (Ottawa) learned that their advocacy to draw attention to the fact that RBC is Canada’s #1 fossil fuel financing bank has secured each of them two tickets to coveted Eras Tour concerts in Toronto and Vancouver in November. RBC is a primary sponsor of the Canadian Eras Tour, which is why the Unite the Swifties campaign is also urging Taylor to “break-up” with RBC over toxic fossil fuel and weapons investments.

Throughout the Summer, 9,000 Unite the Swifties participants from coast-to-coast completed climate actions to hold RBC accountable for its billions in fossil fuel financing, weapons investments, and Indigenous rights violations, entering to win Eras Tour tickets. For more than half of participants, this was their first-ever climate action, demonstrating the creative contest’s ability to reach new climate-conscious people. 

“I am so excited that I won tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour! I still can’t believe it! I’m taking my mom to the concert; we can’t wait to swap bracelets and meet even more incredible Swifties! The Unite the Swifties campaign has been amazing. I got to meet other climate-conscious Swifties and we all worked together to let people know that RBC needs to stop investing in fossil fuels and start taking climate change seriously.” (Avery Parisien, 15, Ottawa, ON) 

“The Unite the Swifties campaign was a great success because it got people involved in taking climate action for the first time ever and created a new community of climate-conscious Swifties. For my generation, the personal is political. It matters to us that the artists we support reflect our values, like not being sponsored by Canada’s #1 fossil fuel bank. Taylor needs to break up with RBC and join her 9,000 fans who are telling her RBC is the problem.” (Celine Isimbi, 24, Change Course, Waterloo, ON)

RBC has bankrolled at least US$256 billion in fossil fuel deals since 2016 and has among the worst clean to dirty energy financing ratios in the world according to Bloomberg NEF. In 2022, for every $1 pumped into fossil fuels, a mere $0.37 was invested in clean energy. For banks to play their role in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius that ratio would need to be 4:1 in favour of clean energy.

The Unite the Swifties campaign plans to participate in Taylgate’s outside of the Toronto and Vancouver concerts on November 15 and December 7. Unite the Swifties is organized by Decolonial Solidarity, Change Course and Stand.earth. To learn more about the campaign please click here.

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By the Numbers: Unite the Swifties for Climate Justice

• 8,942 people entered the contest
• Garnering 100,000+ entries through additional actions
• 54% of participants had never participated in a climate action before 
• 700,000+ people reached through digital storytelling
• 40,000+ people visited UniteTheSwifties.ca
• 35 actions were submitted to the Week of Action map
• Digital and in-print op-ed in The Grind distributed to 50,000+ people 
• Engaged with 190,000+ people people through our social media content
• Letters to the Editor in the Sudbury Star and Burlington Today

RBC: Just the Facts

FACT – RBC is one of the biggest funders of fossil fuels around the world, financing 256.46 billion USD in fossil fuels since the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016.

FACT –  RBC continues to be under investigation by Canada’s Competition Bureau over its climate advertising campaign for being allegedly misleading or ‘greenwashed’, and is facing a securities complaint over allegations of misleading investors through its use of terms like ‘sustainable finance’, without providing the requisite data. 

FACT – Many of RBC’s fossil fuel projects are built in the territories of Indigenous nations without their consent! This includes the Coastal GasLink Pipeline (CGL), which has been forced through the pristine forests of the Yintah (Wet’suwet’en territory), and disrupted the salmon runs in Wedzin Kwa (the river that flows through the territory).

FACT – A report from the University of Toronto’s Toronto Climate Observatory reveals Bay Street’s top financial institutions financing of over $1.43 trillion CAD ($1.1 trillion USD) in fossil fuel companies in 2022, making the sector the fifth largest climate polluter in the world.

FACT – Royal Bank of Canada is bankrolling some of the biggest weapons manufacturers in the world. RBC also holds US$ 61 million in Palantir Technologies Inc, an AI and surveillance corporation operating in occupied Palestine. RBC also owns US$ 763 million in shares of General Dynamics.