Climate change and the fiduciary duties of pension fund trustees in Canada /

Their effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”2 • “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long- lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, [...] The precise scope of a fiduciary’s duties is dependent upon the nature of the fiduciary’s relationship with the beneficiaries.12 In the pension context, pension plan trustees are fiduciaries13 whose duties must be interpreted in a manner consistent with the purposes of a pension plan – to provide a retirement income for employees upon retirement.14 Fiduciary law applicable to pension trustees has [...] British Columbia’s PBSA codifies the duty of loyalty in section 35(3)(a) by requiring that, “In the administration of a pension plan, the administrator must (a) act honestly, in good faith and in the best interests of the members and former members and any other person to whom a fiduciary duty is owed.”29 The duty of loyalty is central to the legal obligations of pension fiduciaries. [...] Subject to obeying the law, “they must put the interests of their beneficiaries first” 32 which interests are usually financial.33 To advance beneficiaries’ financial interests, the duty is to maximize returns having regard to investment risk, as the investment power “… must be exercised so as to yield the best return for the beneficiaries, judged in relation to the risks of the in- vestments in q [...] In the case of the proposed NUM investment policy, on the other hand, the court found that the National Coal Board pension fund was simply too small to affect the future course of the industry, and any impact of the investment policy on the coal industry would be too limited and too remote to benefit the plan’s beneficiaries.