The group rejects the scientific consensus on climate change
An open letter to the Bank of Canada has called banks and insurance companies to task for their alleged inability to objectively assess climate risk or reach United Nations-mandated net-zero targets.
The memo was released by the Friends of Science Society, a self-described independent group of scientists, engineers, and concerned citizens. The organization was founded by members of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, according to a report by The Gauntlet. The Friends of Science Society rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.
The group claimed that contrary to widespread fears of near-future climate disruption as the most likely outcome of current trends, the catastrophic scenario outlined in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is no longer the likely future of humanity.
This means that Canadian banks’ focus on net-zero targets is misplaced, Friends of Science claimed.
“We do have time for a thoughtful, rational energy transition,” the group said. “In reviewing Bank of Canada’s climate risk assessments, we find that practical considerations of the challenges of achieving net zero [are] absent, and that improper assumptions are being made about extreme weather events.”
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Current bank and insurer policies are thus underequipped to handle more likely future events, the group said.
“The problem with ascribing natural disasters to climate change is that important practical actions to mitigate future natural events are forgotten,” Friends of Science said. “Just as it would be laughable to not prepare Canada’s army of snowplows and sanders for winter, it is a puzzle that the Bank of Canada and insurance companies are busy with climate change policies, when they could be promoting effective FireSmart and flood mitigation strategies for communities and citizens, because wildfires and floods happen seasonally every year.”
A revised approach would ensure “a much greater likelihood of saving lives and reducing property damage than wasting millions of dollars on climate models, something Canadian taxpayers are already funding at a national level through a myriad of climate initiatives, ENGOs, and of course the various climate modelling centres in Canada,” the group said.
