Working with the fossil fuel industry to improve its environmental impact is seen as more effective than divesting from the emissions-heavy sector, according to RBC Global Asset Management’s latest survey on environmental, social and governance-focused (ESG) investments.

The asset management division of Canada’s largest bank found global institutional investors preferred engagement (45 per cent) over divestment (10 per cent) by a more than four-to-one margin, a slight increase from 40 per cent a year ago. However, the result comes as some major investment funds sell off oil and gas holdings in pursuit of a greener portfolio. Many of those decisions have targeted companies in Canada’s oil patch.

“Over the last three years, there has been no growing support for divestment amongst institutional investors, indicating a clear preference for engaging in dialogue with companies,” the survey’s authors wrote…read more.

Later this month about 25,000 people are headed to Glasgow for the 26th annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), known as COP26. The UK, this year’s host of the Conference of the Parties, has asked participants to submit more ambitious targets for emissions reductions by 2030 in order to enable the possibility of achieving global net-zero emissions by mid-century. Conference leaders have also asked for increased monetary contribution to climate adaptation and mitigation funds, and have the stated goal of finalizing the regulatory framework for implementing and enforcing the pledges made in the 2015 Paris agreement.

At the same time that the world ramps up for the latest and most robust global climate meeting, an energy crisis is unfolding in Europe and Asia which could set the world back in terms of carbon emissions, and which showcases just how difficult the road to decarbonization will be. As global economies have surged back to life in the post-pandemic era, demand for consumer goods and services has skyrocketed. While consumers have largely bounced back to business as usual, however, supply chains have not been able to keep up.

In the energy sector, supply has simply been unable to keep up with demand, causing an energy crunch and severe price spikes in the European Union, China, and India, leading to massive disruptions of supply chains and industries around the globe. In Europe, the EU is trying to walk a tightrope act between getting enough natural gas from Moscow to stay afloat without seriously compromising their energy security and giving the Kremlin too much geopolitical power. India is seriously at risk of running out of coal, which accounts for 70% of the national energy mix. In China, many energy companies have simply stopped producing, as coal prices have skyrocketed but national price caps prevent energy companies from raising electricity prices accordingly, forcing them to either run at a deficit or shut down entirely…read more.

Royalties and tax credits for B.C.’s oil and gas industry are outdated, piecemeal, complex, and don’t provide the societal benefits that they should, according to an independent assessment by two public policy and energy experts commissioned by the B.C. government to review its oil and gas royalty structure.

But rather than try to tinker with the system – simply eliminating B.C.’s controversial deep well credit, for example – the assessment suggests a complete overhaul of the way the natural gas industry is taxed, and points to Alberta’s revised system as an example worth considering.

The assessment, released today, was conducted by two noted academics – Nancy Olewiler, a public policy professor at Simon Fraser University, and Jennifer Winter, associate professor of economics and scientific director of the energy and environmental policy research at the University of Calgary.

Their assessment will form the foundation for a public review of B.C.’s royalty and tax structure oil and gas that B.C.’s ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation has launched…read more.