In July Canada’s public export bank approved between $200 million and $300 million in new financing for Enbridge, a pipeline developer and one of the bank’s long-standing fossil fuel clients. Export Development Canada signed the deal days after Ecojustice, on behalf of Above Ground and other civil society partners, wrote to EDC urging that it not be approved.
Ecojustice’s legal analysis asserts that EDC’s ongoing financing of fossil fuel companies like Enbridge is incompatible with EDC’s and Canada’s obligations under climate treaties and international human rights law. Canada’s duty to pursue the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, for example, is undermined by bankrolling Enbridge, whose planned new pipelines and storage infrastructure will help ramp up fossil fuel production in the U.S., according to Ecojustice.
Last week EDC’s president and CEO wrote back to Ecojustice, declining to discuss the Enbridge deal. Her letter stresses that EDC’s support for “traditional” oil and gas production in Canada has been “declining steadily.” It is silent, however, on the expanded fossil fuel production that EDC facilitates indirectly through loans to pipeline companies like Enbridge.
The letter doesn’t discuss Enbridge’s operations beyond stating that the company has installed solar panels at some of its sites — a noteworthy “decarbonization effort,” according to EDC.
Read Ecojustice’s analysis and EDC’s reply: