Online National Conference: All Together Now

DREW JONES
“Andrew Jones is the Director and Co-Founder of Climate Interactive and a Research Affiliate at MIT Sloan School of Management. An expert on international climate and energy issues, he is a system dynamics modeler, keynote speaker, and designer of simulation-based learning environments.

Trained in environmental engineering and system dynamics modeling through a B.A. at Dartmouth College and a M.S. in Technology and Policy at MIT, he worked in the 1990s at Rocky Mountain Institute and in the 2000s with Dana Meadows at Sustainability Institute. He teaches system dynamics at MIT Sloan and the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”

MIT/CLIMATE INTERACTIVE’s EnROADS
En-ROADS is a global climate simulator that allows users to explore the impact of roughly 30 policies—such as electrifying transport, pricing carbon, and improving agricultural practices—on hundreds of factors like energy prices, temperature, air quality, and sea level rise.

We invite you to join us in a first of its kind ever for us: a pan-Canadian online conference event with both of our federal and provincial parliamentarians. And there is an additional element: our Parliamentarians will ask Drew Jones and staff at MIT/Climate Interactive to simulate their favourite climate policies in the EnROADS policy simulator. 

All Together Now.pptx

Agenda – Times are shown in EDT

11:05 am –  Welcome,  land acknowledgements and a quiz about Canadian climate policy

11:10 – 11:40 am – Drew Jones and the team at MIT/CI will present the EnROADS policy simulator with parliamentarians asking the questions. We will be flexible with the end time.

11:40 – 12:00 pm – break out rooms. Constituents with their own reps can talk policy. Constituents with their own reps continue to explore EnROADS together. They don’t have to come back to plenary.

12:30 pm – Absolute hard finish.

Theme: The theme is harmony. Specifically, we need the harmonization of climate policy in Canada.

Focus: Our focus is on defending and improving Canada’s carbon pricing policy with integrity and the big picture in mind.

Discussions in breakout rooms: Led by trained facilitators and focused on our finalized and bilingual 2022 fall lobbying ask of our provincial and federal parliamentarians. Or you can continue to explore climate policies with MIT.

Beforehand:

1. Beforehand everyone reviews and establishes the focus of the discussion based on our current lobbying asks
2. If your group and parliamentarian(s) want to continue exploring the EnROADS simulator, we will put MIT/CI in the name of the breakout room beforehand

During

1. First, establish how much time you have.
2. Then move on to introductions, appreciation, introducing the asks, discussions using motivational interviewing, and other conversational strategies that do not involve lecturing nor arguing.
3. Usually, the timekeeper goes first and the appreciator goes last in the introductions
4. The facilitators and their teams have been instructed to come up with two or three questions to elicit conversations.
5. Time-keeper signals when to wrap up, establish follow-up
6. Take a Zoom Photo.

After

1. Please use the hashtag #AllTogetherNow and tag @citizenslobbyca when posting your photo
2. IMPORTANT What is said in the room breakout room stays in the room unless the parliamentarian indicates otherwise.
3. You do not need to return to the plenary
4. It is recommended that you debrief after the parliamentarian leaves to make sure you capture good notes, clarify who does the follow-up, post the photo on Twitter and who is submitting the notes.
5. Submit field report in the Action Tracker – the group leader is responsible for making sure the notes are submitted.

Our ask for cooperation within the Confederation on fair and evidence-based climate policy 

Appreciation: We respect the enduring work of all politicians during this time of converging crises. We are here to help. 

The Reality:  The conclusions of the February and April 2022 reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are quite clear. We have just over seven years to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half but there is a path forward. Governments must enact evidence-based and socially-just policies at unprecedented levels. Thus, Canada’s confederation will have to cooperate at unprecedented levels too.

Since 2010, Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada has lobbied for a revenue-neutral, economy-wide rising carbon price that includes carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMS). The carbon price must be applied upstream with minimal, principled exceptions, and with dividends equitably returned to households. We are asking parliamentarians to consider:

1. Move gas-powered electricity from the Output-Based Pricing System into the Fuel Charge section of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.
2. Follow the European Union’s lead in implementing CBAMs by 2026. To prepare for CBAMs, Canada’s carbon pricing policies must be harmonized in terms of the price of carbon pollution, coverage (GHG emissions and sources of emissions) and transparency.
3. Study the appropriate rate of increasing the carbon price beyond 2030 to provide certainty so that households, business and industry can plan accordingly.
4. Include all measurable GHGs in the Federal GHG Inventory and apply a carbon price to them. With regards to the volatile anaesthetic Desflurane, although our preferred methodology would be pollution pricing we are continuing the discussions and hope to have a clearer view of what the best lobbying ask will be after COP 27. 
5. Request that the Parliamentary Budget Office in future reports on federal carbon pricing take into account the economic, health and environmental costs of climate change and economic benefits of the clean energy economy.
6. Educate impacted Canadians about the rebates they receive under the GGPPA’s Fuel Charge in provinces where it applies. Most households that receive the rebates are unaware that they realize financial gains from carbon pricing.
7. (Quebec MNAs only), continue to reduce the emissions cap and/or increase the floor price of the cap-and-trade market sufficiently to meet 2030 emission reduction targets.
8. (Quebec MNAs only), provide greater transparency on the usage of Green Funds to ensure funds raised by the carbon market are used for their intended purposes.
9. Additionally, Citizens’ Climate Lobby supports a cap on emissions. In fact, seven out ten Canadians support a cap on emissions. A cap is necessary to maintain geographical and sectoral balance in Canada’s economy as we transition to net-zero.

Why invite both parliamentarians? Because a politician has indicated that the lack of cooperation between the provincial and federal governments is impeding progress. Canada is a confederation, thus, provinces, territories, and the federal government must collaborate on big-ticket items.

Here are two case histories.

1. PM Robert Borden introduced a temporary income tax in 1917 and it took until 1949 to harmonize income taxes in Canada.
2. Similarly, in 1947 the province of Saskatchewan introduced the first provincial hospital insurance program but it took until 1966 to begin harmonizing our beloved health care systems nationally. 

The world has until January 2030, just seven years, to cut greenhouse gas pollution in half.  We don’t have time to wait. Thus, we are facilitating discussions across the confederation.

Policy Background: 

• (2008) British Columbia introduces a price on pollution and accompanying income tax cut
• (2012) Quebec introduces a cap-and-trade carbon market
• (2018) The Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA) sets a minimum national standard for the pricing of greenhouse gases. 
• (2019) Nova Scotia cap-and-trade carbon market comes into effect

• (2020) –  A Healthy Environment and Healthy Economy is the government’s 5-pillar plan to reduce greenhouse gases in Canada. Included in this were plans for Carbon fee rebates moving from an annual tax credit to quarterly and direct payments in 2022 where the GGPPA Fuel Charge applies in AB, SK, MB, ON & NS (2023). A rising price on GHG pollution with a target of $170 per tonne by 2030 (set out in the 2021 update to the Pan-Canadian Approach to Carbon Pollution Pricing). Studying the implementation of border carbon adjustments. 

• (2021) The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (Bill C-12) enshrines Canada’s commitment towards net zero emissions by 2050 into law, and requires the establishment of interim credible emissions targets and reports.
• (2022) 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan – Canada’s Next Steps for Clean Air and a Strong Economy sets out a path to GHG emissions that are at least 40 percent lower than 2005 levels by 2030.
• (2022) The Government of Quebec releases Plan pour une économie verte 2030 – Plan de mise en œuvre 2022-2027 which forecasts a carbon price of $97/tonne by 2030. The measures in the plan are expected to realize 51% of the Government’s targeted emissions reductions.
• (2022) The federal government announces the federal carbon price will be applied in Nova Scotia, as the province’s cap-and-trade system is too weak to meet federal standards.

1. October 2022 Action Sheets include scripts to invite your parliamentarians and 3 new Laser Talks.
2. Carbon Pricing Laser Talks Booklet- A whole booklet that delves into speaking about carbon pricing including
   –  Intro: Why Price Carbon Emissions?
   – Carbon Pricing Instruments
   – The State of Carbon Pricing Worldwide
   – Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms
   – Implicit Carbon Pricing in the USA’s Inflation Reduction Act (2022)
   –  Explicit Carbon Pricing in Canada’s Carbon Pricing
   – and More!
   

You don’t need to learn everything. Focus on the Laser Talks that make the most sense for what you are lobbying your MP for.

Our CCL Bootcamp was so much fun. 
The slides are here. 

CCL Canada Catch-Up Call + #AllTogetherNow Co-Host Training 
Total time = 1 hour
https://citizensclimate.zoom.us/my/cclinternational
passcode (look in your emails)
Thursday, October 6, 2022, 5 pm PDT / 8 pm EDT
Friday, October 7, 2022, 8 am PDT / 11 am EDT

#AllTogetherNow Co-Host Training
Total time = 30 minutes
https://citizensclimate.zoom.us/my/cclinternational 
passcode (look in your emails)
Thursday, October 6, 2022, 6 pm PDT / 9 pm EDT
Friday, October 7, 2022, 9 am PDT / noon EDT

Where: Zoom please sign -up open now 

At this point, we are going to wait until well after COP 27 to determine our specific lobbying ask. In the spring of 2023, in collaboration with others, through our monthly Catch-Up calls and other calls, we will chart the next step on this file. If you want to have input, attend the calls and read below to have the full perspective.