Business funding on climate action needs to ‘rise exponentially’: RBC report

TORONTO—A report from RBC says business funding for climate action needs to “rise exponentially” for the country to be on course for net-zero emissions by 2050.

The RBC Climate Action Institute report says while money coming from public and private sources has grown by almost 50 per cent since 2021 to $22 billion, funding needs to reach $60 billion a year for the rest of the decade to hit emission reduction targets.

The report says public markets, private equity and venture capital will need to “step up” and push more money into green investments, as they made up only eight per cent of the capital flows into climate efforts since 2021.

It says private markets are generating more than sufficient capital to finance more of the transition, with only six per cent of new capital financing going towards climate and cleantech efforts last year.

Provincial and municipal governments will also have to ramp up efforts, the report said, and consumers will also have to change spending patterns, as the federal government has so far supplied much of the funding and is reaching its fiscal limits. 

The inaugural report from RBC’s climate institute comes as environmental groups increasingly urge all Canada’s big banks to direct more funding towards climate efforts, and away from fossil fuel expansion projects.  

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