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April 2023
 

The Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign (OCEC) is a non-partisan campaign promoting awareness of the climate crisis and environmental issues. The campaign is based on our 12-point Climate Action Plan, which has 253 signatory groups and 422 signatory individuals. To join OCEC, sign on as a group or sign on as an individual.
 
In this issue…

Following News about initiatives and actions of the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign and its Signatory Groups, we suggest Key Resources for current information and diverse perspectives. We then provide a list of Upcoming Events and highlight some Good News
OCEC-SUPPORTED INITIATIVES

Beyond Gas Campaign

In the midst of a climate emergency imminently threatening our liveable future, the Government of Ontario has announced a massive expansion of methane gas-fired electricity, particularly in southern Ontario. We’re likely to see (and have already seen) proposals to expand existing gas plants, including Windsor, Sarnia, St. Clair Township, Brampton, Toronto, Halton Hills, Newmarket, Greater Napanee, Kingston, and the Ottawa area. The damaging fallout from this decision on the economy, human and environmental health and jobs will be staggering. 

To launch the Beyond Gas campaign the OCEC Co-Chairs invited Mark Jacobson, author of No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air, to speak on the potential for a renewable energy future on April 18. Gaby Kalapos of the Ontario Clean Air Partnership and Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance provided the Ontario context for this campaign. With over 450 registrations and 200 in attendance it was a very successful launch. You can watch the webcast: Beyond Gas: Ontario’s Energy Future here.

The Beyond Gas Campaign invites every Ontarian, including municipal councillors and MPPs, to learn more and take action on this critically important issue. Renewable energy is less expensive and safer than fossil fuels and has proven to function reliably at large scale in many other countries. There are several components to the campaign, which is a collaboration of several OCEC Signatory Groups. We prepared a backgrounder and tool kit, organized a Beyond Gas Advocacy Skills Workshop on April 5, which was repeated on April 21, and presented Beyond Gas: Ontario’s Energy Future on April 18.

On Wednesday, May 3, at 7:00PM, there will be a free virtual training session for anyone interested in lobbying their representatives on this important issue. All Ontarians are welcome!

Register here.

Let's get as many Ontarians out as possible to meet with, call and or write letters to your MPPs and Municipal Councillors to say no to gas-fired electricity and demand renewable energy growth instead as the only way forward to a thriving future!" 

The Beyond Gas Campaign addresses several items in the OCEC Climate Action Plan, i.e.

03: Invest in a thriving, regenerative, zero emissions economy.
04: End all fossil fuel subsidies immediately and rapidly wind down all fossil fuel use.
05: Accelerate the transition to zero emission buildings.

Check out the collection of materials to help support the campaign:

Sign up for Environmental Defence’s climate newsletter to receive resources and action alerts. Fill out this form if you want to get even more involved and join the municipal gas plants coalition.

See the Toronto Star article on April 23: Will new gas plants deprive Ontario businesses of billions in tax credits? The federal budget released last month included a clean-electricity tax credit worth an estimated $25.7 billion, but only in provinces that commit to a net-zero electricity by 2035, which Ontario has not done.
SIGNATORY ACTIONS

Earth Day Events

Many climate action groups collaborated on Earth Day events this past weekend. Below are a few examples.

The EcoFair at Trinity St. Paul’s United Church in Toronto on April 23 was well-attended and showcased many climate action organizations.

Sheatre, a community arts company, and the Georgian Bluffs Climate Action Group put on a skit at Owen Sound Earth Day. The theme, developed through improv, was greed and sprawl displacing the homes of beavers, birds and voles. The villain was Mr. No-Change whose ears were stuffed full of money. The heroes were animal activists who carried signs saying "Yes Change."

(Photo: Amber Robinson)

Over 20 organizations participated in Brampton’s Earth Day celebrations at Norton Place Park, organized by the City of Brampton with the help of Brampton Environmental Alliance. The cold rainy weather didn’t deter 340 people who joined the celebrations. Read more.

Demonstrations

March 21: RBC Protest
Seniors and youth joined together in Kingston to call on RBC to divest from fossil fuels and to uphold Indigenous rights and dignity, organized by Seniors for Climate Action Now; Queens Backing Climate Action, and 350.org Kingston.
Watch the video.

April 1: Fossil Fools Day

On April 1st, several OCEC signatories participated in demonstrations that took place at RBC locations across Canada to protest the financial institution's financing of fossil fuel projects.

Letters and Petitions

From the Council of Canadians:
We can – and must – resist Ford’s sprawl agenda
Ontarians came together to oppose the Bill, and opposition is still strong despite the bill’s passage. Efforts across the province are continuing to apply pressure on PC MPPs to remain accountable to their constituents
Read more

The David Suzuki Foundation just launched a new ad campaign with one goal in mind: stop the Ontario government’s attack on the world’s largest protected greenbelt. The federal environment minister has the mandate to step in and stop Highway 413 and is considering it now. He needs to hear from you.
Send a letter
UPCOMING EVENTS
 

Online Events

Tuesday, May 2, 2023, 10:00-11:30 AM
The Climate Emergency Unit and Climate Caucus invite you to attend a one-hour online briefing about the proposal for a new federal Just Transition Transfer, a potentially transformative policy idea to fund municipal climate infrastructure. This session is intended for people who work in the municipal sector. 
Register

Wednesday, May 3, 7:00 PM
Hone your advocacy skills, practise specific tasks, and role play in preparation for meetings with political representatives.
Register

Join moderator Dan Hendry with Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Sustainable Kingston, and community friends for a presentation by Dr. Jonathan Foley, Executive Director of Project Drawdown. Project Drawdown has developed a list of 93 technologies and practices that can reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and are currently available, growing in scale, financially viable, and able to have a net positive impact. Every decision we make is a climate decision. 
 
Register

Join Environmental Defence, energy experts, and local community organizers on May 4th at 6 p.m. for a virtual discussion about why we need to stop new gas plants, the energy alternatives available, how the coal phase-out was won, and how to successfully prevent a gas plant expansion in your community!
Register
Climate Emergency and Resource Extraction Series
 

SCAN!, together with co-sponsors, Climate Action Muskoka (CAM) and Environment Haliburton (EH!) have put together a four-part Climate Emergency and Extraction Series that kicks off on May 10. The first session will feature a presentation by Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada on the impact of mineral extraction on humans and the larger natural world as we transition from fossil fuels to renewables. Subsequent parts of the monthly series will examine the climate and wider ecological impacts of Industrial Forestry, Agricultural and Aggregate Extraction. 
 
Register

In-Person Event

May 5, 9:00 AM - May 6, 5:00 PM1 Devonshire Place Toronto.

This Symposium on the Environment will explore anthropogenic impacts on the earth, using a range of approaches - environmental humanities, decolonial studies, Indigenous studies, and more.
Registration & Information
KEY RESOURCES
 

Reports

1. National inventory report: greenhouse gas sources and sinks in Canada.
On April 15 Canada released its official national greenhouse gas inventory submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Below is a chart showing changes in emissions since 2005, by economic sector, drawn from the data in the report.


2. Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, Max Cohen, Isabella Pojuner, Avi Lewis.
Don’t wait for the state: A blueprint for grassroots climate transitions in Canada. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. April 4, 2023.
The climate transition is urgent—and it's increasingly clear that governments aren't acting fast enough. How can communities, workers, and movements directly implement a transition? This report offers a framework for communities to organize around the idea of an inclusive and productive transition to a cleaner local economy.

3. Mark Paul and Linda Moe. An Economist’s Case for Restrictive Supply Side Policies: Ten Policies to Manage the Fossil Fuel Transition. Rutgers University Climate and Community Project. March 2023.
These researchers challenge the assumption that focusing on clean energy investment will result in fossil fuel firms voluntarily closing their doors and exiting the market in an orderly fashion. “Without discrete restrictive supply-side planning and policy, the end of fossil fuels will be a chaotic collapse where workers, communities, and the environment suffer.”, and provide 10 examples of restrictive supply-side policies which policy-makers can act on now: Read a summary of the report in The Energy Mix.

4. Banking on Climate Chaos 2023. This report adds up financing (lending and underwriting of debt and equity issuances) from the world’s 60 biggest banks for the fossil fuel sector as a whole, as well as for top expanders of the fossil fuel industry and top companies in specific sectors. Here are two articles from Canada's National Observer drawing from this report:

5. Project Drawdown’s 2022 Annual Outcomes and Outlook Report provides a snapshot of accomplishments during 2022 and highlights the urgency of accelerating the adoption of science-based climate solutions that help individuals and organizations reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Videos and Recordings

The Climate Pod: A Weekly Conversation On Environmental and Climate Issues.   Hear from leading experts on the politics, economics, activism, culture, science, and social justice issues at the heart of the climate crisis. 

Articles

1. Ontario is trying to make it easier to convert land into new suburbs — again: Bill 23, now the 2022 More Homes Built Faster Act, and the Greenbelt and Wetlands regulatory changes weren’t the end of the Ford government’s urban sprawl legislative bombs. Introduced the day before the Easter long weekend to escape notice. There is yet a third round of legislative proposals undermining municipal land use control and centralizing power in the hands of the Ministry of the Environment, giving it even more leeway to use Ministry Zoning Orders (MZO’s). See The Narwhal’s analysis of how Bill 97, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, and a revised provincial planning statement will make it easier to rezone farmland and convert lands reserved for industrial development into more-profitable residential plots, adding to urban sprawl.
  
2. Marco Chown Oved, Climate Change Reporter, Toronto Star. Tuesday, April 18, 2023
The Offshore Wind Power Alternative in Lake Ontario - cleaner and cheaper than Gas and SMRs.
WHAT'S THE GOOD NEWS?

1. Companies that invest the most in green growth earn triple the returns.
New research from Corporate Knights indicates that the best stock market returns come from companies actively embracing the clean energy transition. The Sustainable Economy Intelligence database tracks revenues and spending derived from the green economy of more than 2,800 public companies. In the most recent three-year period, the companies in the top 20% of the SEI outperformed the most prominent index of global companies, the MSCI All Country World Index, by a factor of three to one.

2. A net-zero Canada will see 700,000 more energy jobs than exist today.
Canada would gain 700,000 energy jobs in a net-zero world, according to a new report by Clean Energy Canada.  While there will be a 1.5-million job decline in fossil fuels in this scenario (the world will want a lot less oil and gas), this is far exceeded by the 2.2-million job increase in clean energy as employment in the sector grows 7% per year between now and 2050.

3. Students end 18-day occupation after university announces timeline to divest
After an 18-day student occupation of one of its buildings, the University of Toronto’s Victoria University approved a motion to divest “funds in its endowment portfolio that have exposure to direct fossil fuel producers.” Read the article in Canada's National Observer.

4. Global sales of heat pumps grew by 11% in 2022, according to the latest International Energy Agency (IEA) analysis, marking a second year of double-digit growth for the central technology in the world’s transition to secure and sustainable heating.

5. U.S. President Joe Biden just issued the first veto of his Presidency, blocking legislation that would have prevented retirement investment plans from considering environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors when selecting investments. Investment decisions will not be required to be based solely on the best rate of return.

6. Amsterdam airport bans private jets to reduce noise and climate pollution
In November 2022 climate activists gathered in front of luxury planes and private jets at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, preventing them from taking off for several hours. In response, the airport vowed to have zero emissions by 2030. Earlier this month the airport announced several measures, including the banning of private jets, which emit around 20 times more climate-warming carbon dioxide per passenger than commercial aircraft, by 2026. 

7. Ontario youth undeterred in legal fight to hold Ontario government accountable for climate action
While the historic climate case led by seven young people (Mather et al.) in Ontario was dismissed by the Ontario Superior Court, the decision includes a damning indictment of the Ontario government’s inadequate and dangerous climate target which puts people in the province on a collision course with the harmful and deadly impacts of climate change. Backed by Ecojustice and lawyers from Stockwoods LLP, the youth challenged the Ontario government’s decision to significantly weaken the province’s 2030 climate target, arguing that it violates the fundamental rights of youth and future generations. The judge affirmed that young people and Indigenous peoples are disproportionately impacted by the harms of climate change and found that challenges to the constitutionality of climate targets and plans is an appropriate legal question for courts to weigh in on. The decision will be appealed to Ontario’s Court of Appeal.

8. Chevron voluntarily gave up 19 offshore oil and gas exploration permits within sensitive marine areas on the West Coast. The fossil fuel giant made the announcement after the David Suzuki Foundation and World Wildlife Fund Canada, represented by the legal charity Ecojustice, launched a court challenge disputing the permits in July 2022. Read more in Canada’s National Observer.
 

Many thanks to everyone that contributed to this issue of OCEC Connections.

Do you have any resources, upcoming events or actions you want to share? Send them to us at OCECnews@gmail.com. 

ontarioclimateemergency.ca
ocecnews@gmail.com

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts.

Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia.