Fossil Futures: The Canada Pension Plan’s Failure to Respect the 1.5-Degree Celsius Limit
November 19, 2019

Jessica Dempsey, a 2018 Wall Scholar, co-authored a report on pension plan investment and the moral and financial risk involved in investing without the inclusion of environmental factors. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) manages one of the country’s largest pools of investment capital at over $400 billion. How pension funds choose to invest has significant bearing on how we collectively address the climate emergency and the needed energy transition away from fossil fuels. This report asks if the CPPIB is investing with the 1.5-degree Celsius limit on global average temperature rise as outlined in the Paris Agreement and finds it is not.
While in residency at the Peter Wall Institute for advanced studies, Jessica Dempsey explored political-economic theorizations fo biodiversity loss, tracing how natural resources are kept in devalued, or “cheap” positions by laws, policies and economic systems.
Read the report published in the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives here.