Stop your pension from building pipelines!

Stop your pension from building pipelines!
Last week Reuters revealed that U.S.-based pipeline company Kinder Morgan is approaching Canadian funders to raise money to triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline to 890,000 barrels a day. This would also quadruple the number of supertankers to more than 400 in B.C’s Burrard Inlet each year. One funder Kinder Morgan has approached is the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

If you work or have worked in Canada, you are a contributor to the Canada Pension Plan. You have a say in whether or not your pension funds are used to pay for risky pipeline projects that fuel climate change and endanger coastal waters.

This pipeline would be:
A risky investment. Globally, as the world transitions to a clean energy economy, investing in fossil fuel-based companies like Kinder Morgan becomes a liability. Oil giants Exxon and ConocoPhilips recently announced they are leaving a combined 4.7 billion barrels of tar sands reserves in the ground because they aren’t profitable enough to extract. Shell and Statoil are slowly divesting their tar sands assets.

A risk  to water and the climate. The Trans Mountain pipeline crosses 1,300 waterways. A pipeline spill in any of them would have devastating impacts. Building and expanding pipelines also moves us away from our Paris climate commitments. Building Kinder Morgan would singlehandedly add an estimate 28 megatons of CO2 equivalent downstream emissions.

A violation of  Indigenous rights. At least six West Coast Indigenous communities are suing the federal government because the Trans Mountain pipeline would threaten their livelihoods.

Even though the Trudeau government recently approved the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, many obstacles still remain, including Kinder Morgan’s need to secure investors for the $6.8 billion project.

Take  action! Tell the CPPIB you don’t want your pension fund invested in the Trans  Mountain pipeline.