Cover image credit: Jim Peaco / National Park Service.
Widening Divide: Canadian Pensions at a Crossroads on Climate Leadership
Join Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health for a presentation of key insights from Shift's annual Canadian Pension Climate Report Card, released in January 2026.
Climate impacts and energy transition risks are shaping the financial outlook for pension funds – and exposing deep fractures in how the managers of Canada’s largest funds are responding. Shift’s report analyses eleven major Canadian pension managers, with a collective $2.7 trillion in assets under management, to assess how they are addressing climate risk, shifting capital into climate solutions investment opportunities and protecting the long-term retirement security of Canadians.
This fourth edition reveals a stark and widening divide: while leading pension funds are implementing ambitious climate plans, scaling up multi-billion-dollar investments in climate solutions and centring climate risk in their portfolio strategies, backsliding funds are saying less about their climate strategy, gambling billions on fossil fuel expansion, and retreating from climate commitments. The report highlights historic firsts at both ends of the spectrum – including Canada’s first ‘A’-range overall grade for a pension fund, and an unprecedented net-zero reversal by the country’s largest public pension manager.
In this engaging session, we’ll unpack the report’s findings, explore the leadership and backsliding among Canadian pension funds, and examine the implications of these diverging approaches. We’ll highlight examples of credible climate strategies, discuss the risks of inaction and “greenhushing,” and outline what meaningful pension fund leadership on climate looks like in today’s volatile global context.
Join us to learn more. Register now.