MEDIA RELEASE: Everything is Connected: Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada’s National Conference and Lobby Days

MEDIA RELEASE: Everything is Connected: Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada’s National Conference and Lobby Days

Everything is Connected: Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada’s National Conference and Lobby Days

Media Release: Friday, October 28, 2016
Contact: Cathy Orlando, cathy@citizensclimatelobby.org 705-929-4043

SUDBURY ON: From Saturday, November 26 to Tuesday, November 29, 2016 Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada will be conducting our Third National Conference and Lobbying Days in Ottawa. Since September 2010, Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Canada members have been lobbying their federal parliamentarians for carbon fee and dividend: an upstream, national and incrementally rising revenue neutral carbon tax where 100 percent of the revenue collected by the government is returned to citizens on an equitable basis in a cheque.

Our volunteers across Canada have been communicating about climate change and carbon pricing with their local leaders, media and at outreach events for over six years. Since 2010, we have had 1333 letters to the editor, articles and opinion pieces published in newspapers by or about us. In 2016, across Canada, currently we have lobbied our federal MPs 111 times in face-to-face meetings for carbon fee and dividend. After all this communicating it is impossible to ignore how everything is connected. And that is the theme of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada’s Third National Conference and Lobbying Days: Everything is Connected.

On October 3rd, 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau announced Canada will have a national price on carbon. This is a significant step in the fight against climate change and we applaud the 42nd Parliament’s commitment to secure a healthy climate for us and future generations. We are heartened by the fact that the carbon price is national in scope, revenue neutral federally and it rises at $10 per year, starting at $10 per tonne in 2018 rising to $50 per tonne in 2022.

A price of $50 per tonne won’t be enough to meet Canada’s goal of reducing emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. As well, this goal is woefully inadequate.  If every country adopted Canada’s targets this would not keep warming below 2oC, let alone the 1.5oC nations promised to pursue in Paris. In short, the proposed national carbon price is a good starting point, but it isn’t enough.  We must do better. Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteers will be urging the Canadian government to improve upon on the currently proposed carbon pricing policy.

We have an exciting line-up of speakers including: Glen Hodgson, newly appointed Senior Fellow and former Vice President and Chief Economist at the Conference Board of Canada and Renee Lertzman, author of Environmental Melancholia: Psychoanalytic Dimensions of Engagement. Ottawa City Councillor David Chernushenko is our venue sponsor and he will give opening comments on the Sunday.  For complete details explore the conference webpage HERE.

CCL is a non-partisan international organization. Members of CCL’s International’s advisory board include: George P. Shultz, former US secretary of state; Dr. James Hansen, retired Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, Canadian Climate Scientist at Texas Tech University; and others. CCL believes politicians don’t create political will, they respond to it. CCL believes citizens who are well trained, organized by ridings and with a good system of support can influence the political process. Our volunteers want Canada to lead the fight to save the global climate, and they want to help politicians achieve this noble goal.

Registration for the conference closes Friday, November 11, 2016. For more information please go here:
https://cclca.wpengine.com/ccl-canadas-2016-national-conference-and-lobby-days/

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