CCL Canada Spring Rendez-Vous, Rembering Marshall Saunders & Budget Discussions and more.

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CCL Canada Newsletter
January 2020
   
 
   

 

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Table of Contents:
CCL Canada Spring Rendez-Vous 
Remembering Marshall Saunders 
Budget Discussions with Dr. Saxe
#YourBudget Media Release 
Global Emergency Response 
Canadian 2019 Metrics
Featured LTE of the month
Save the Date
 
Save the dates Canada. We are going back to Parliament Hill to lobby for the 15th time together.
 
Overview:
  • Monday, May 11, 2020: afternoon conference followed by a reception with our MPs in the evening. 
  • Tuesday, May 12, 2020: lobbying all day on Parliament Hill for improvements in Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.
Confirmed Speakers and Guests:

Registration will be capped at 75 people. Thus register early and bookmark the page.  

 

 

Rembering Marshall Saunders  
 
The founder of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Marshall Saunders, passed away at the age of 80 on December 27, 2019.  Marshall left a profound legacy: a highly focused organization empowering citizens in 55 countries around the world.
 
In September 2010, Canada became the first country outside the USA to join Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Marshall was proud of CCL Canada’s early work leading delegations to the World Bank (2011-2013) to ask them to stop funding coal projects and in 2018 when Canada enacted a carbon fee and dividend policy.

Marshall loved Canada’s national anthem. In 2013, he invited us to sing O’Canada with him at the CCL International Conference in Washington DC which is pictured above. From left to right are Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu, Marshall Saunders, Tom Cullen, Cheryl McNamara, Sharon Howarth, Judy Coffey, Lyn Adamson, and Julia Lansing.  Here is a published story and a video of Marshall’s “ CCL is the climate cavalry ” speech from that memorable conference in 2013. 

If you want to get to know our founder and “CCL’s  DNA”, we recommend that you read a beautiful tribute to Marshall by Sam Daley-Harris and view his Memorial Service. You can read and/or leave comments on the CCL Community page dedicated to Marshall, too.
 
PreBudget Discussions with Dr. Dianne Saxe
 
Marshall Saunders was highly focused on carbon fee and dividend and we are holding onto his dream.

In 2020, CCL Canada is doubling down on our focus on improving Canada’s carbon fee and dividend policy. The evidence is clear that we need carbon pricing to avert disaster but carbon pricing can’t do it alone. Thus, we have to keep in mind other policies while lobbying. 
 
Politicians and citizens can test the efficacy of their favourite climate policies on two policy simulators at ENROADS and Pembina
 
Integrity is one of our core values. We are open to new information. We balance integrity with our super power: focus. We have the best volunteers on the planet. We know that they are quite capable of being cognizant of other policies while focusing their lobbying on carbon fee and dividend.

Thus, when Dr. Saxe, the former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario asked us how she could help us, we suggested that she share sage advice with us on what other policies our volunteers should consider when they give submissions for the Ontario Budget while emphasizing carbon fee and dividend.
 
 
#YourBudget Media Release
 
Here is something Canadians can do from home right now to help build political will for a liveable world: make recommendations for government budgets to address the emergency we are in.
 
Submissions should be made as soon as possible for the federal budget. The federal government says that climate change will be a key element in this next budget.  You can submit your ideas by email at budget2020@canada.ca or online here. 
 
The deadline to submit ideas for the Ontario budget is February 11, 2020:  https://www.ontario.ca/page/2020-budget-consultations  
 
Please use the hashtag #YourBudget on social media.

For more information, and lots of helpful hyperlinks and suggestions, read our media release for the budget submissions.
 
 
Global Emergency Requires a Focused Response
 
When one country has a climate emergency, we all experience a climate emergency.
 
All around the world, our CCL volunteers are experiencing dramatic impacts from our changing climate including flash flooding in Burundi, the water crisis in Chile, recording-breaking snowfall in Sudbury ON,  the long term impacts of cyclones Idai and Kenneth in 2019 in Mozambique and the devastating droughts in Zimbabwe that are bringing on unprecedented food insecurity and killed more than 200 elephants in November 2019 to name just a handful. 
 
During the Christmas holidays, the epic bushfires in Australia filled our airways. CCL Canada and CCL Australia have been working together since 2013. As wealthy countries we have a responsibility to do the right thing. The economics of the climate crisis is clear: a predictably rising carbon price while returning the money back to the people has the power to do much of the heavy lifting towards achieving scientifically-based climate goals while not burdening the poor. 
 
We are in a global emergency and CCL’s focus is needed now more than ever. 
 
Here is a recent blog from CCL Australia’s leader, Rod Mitchell, Carbon pricing to the rescue – for climate and government:

… Tragically, we now have a disaster serious enough to wake up almost all of us to the catastrophe that is unfolding in large parts of Australia and advertising itself to the rest of the world. The government now has the opportunity to break with the narrow sectional interests that have been constraining its climate policies and begin to lead in the national interest. It can now move to ’climate rescue’ mode  …Read more here. 
 
CCL Canada's Record-Breaking Year
 
We have been tracking our actions since September 2010 and we just had another record-breaking year. Our actions in 2019 reflected our need to focus our energies locally during the election period including lots of articles and outreach by our volunteers. 
  • Most number of CCL groups submitted field reports: 36
  • Most number of field reports entered (excluding letters to MPs) * : 1,153 (2019) vs 969 (2018)
  • Most number of outreach events:  198 (2019) vs 88 (2018)
  • Most number of appearances in MSM print: 719 (2019) vs  681 (2018)
  • Canada’s appearances in MSM print was 15% of all of CCL globally.
  • The most number of articles written by or about us:   141 (2019) vs 54 (2018)
  • 2nd most number of lobbying notes submitted:  162 (2019) vs 130 (2018) vs 201 (2016) **
*In 2018 we were part of a nationwide letter-writing campaign in collaboration with numerous organizations in the Climate Action Network for Canada to commit to peer-review of our fossil fuel subsidies under the G20. We were urged by MPs in three of the four major parties to do this action, too. Ergo we had a lot of personal letters to parliamentarians.

**In 2016, we lobbied in Ottawa 3 times. We were relentless in our efforts to document everything during the consultations for the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Whereas we only lobbied once together in Ottawa  in 2019 because we were focused on building political will in our home ridings during the election year. 

 
Canadians must be part of the solution in the fight against global warming
 
The first field report of 2020 submitted into our database was from Doug Pritchard of CCL Toronto East and it was a letter to the editor in the Toronto Star.
 
Canadians must be part of the solution in the fight against global warming
 
Rosie DiManno says the ozone hole “has healed itself.” Yet she also says it took the 180 nations who signed the Montreal Protocol to bring that about.
 
Likewise, it will take the nations of the world to solve the even bigger crisis caused by our greenhouse gas emissions. All nations, including Canada. Yes, there are big emitters, but the small emitters together make up 30 percent of the total. So we need everyone on board, just like with the Montreal Protocol.
 
Sitting back and waiting for someone else to make the first move is a recipe for disaster. No wonder kids are depressed.
 
Doug Pritchard, Toronto  
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