GASP Update - Global Day of Action - October 22, 2021
Halton Hills organized a rally on Friday, October 22, 2021 to join millions around the world for this Global Day of Action in advance of the Glasgow climate summit. GASP members joined the rally - Carole, Lorraine, Tina, Alison, Linda, Liz, Kathy, Sally and Daisy.
GASP member Daisy Radigan wrote: Thank you dear GASP members for attending the ‘Walk for the World’ in Georgetown last Friday. Your smiling faces, multiple signs, singing voices, sincere hearts and raw-raw enthusiasm helped to make the walk an ‘event’ with pizzazz!
Thanks of course to Councillor Jane Fogal who is a fearless leader for climate action!
International Climate Action
A message for world leaders and delegates at COP26 -
Don’t choose extinction!
Kathy, Tina and Carole wrote: Cute, short (2.5 min) video for Wrap-up. Don't try pushing the play button on the dinosaur - click on the following link to view the video. https://dontchooseextinction.com/en/
From Lorraine: Great binding, equitable measures in this youth manifesto. They should be writing the climate plans for all countries!
Pre-COP26 youth summit unveils its list of demands
Young delegates from the Youth4Climate: Driving Ambition summit say the 44-page manifesto represents their effort to influence the UN meeting's outcome. Its authors push for net-zero emissions by 2030, by which time, the young delegates expect the fossil fuel industry to be abolished via “a complete and systemic phase-out initiated by developed countries, with the provision of support to developing countries to allow for an aspect of equity in the context of a sustainable transition.” https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/10/26/news/pre-cop26-youth-summit-unveils-its-list-demands?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oct26
National Emission Pledges before COP26 on track for 2.7°C Warming
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says countries’ failure to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions is putting the world on course for 2.7°C average global warming by 2100, with massively destructive results.
All 195 of the countries that signed the 2015 Paris climate agreement were supposed to submit plans to speed up their emission reductions in time for the COP, and 120 of them have done so, the BBC reports. A 45% reduction in emissisons is required by 2030 to hold average global warming to 1.5°C. But pledges to date cut greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 by around 7.5%.
Fossil Production Dangerously Out of Sync With Paris 1.5°C Limit
The United National Environment Programme (UNEP) 2021 Production Gap Report finds that governments’ fossil fuel production plans are dangerously out of sync with Paris limits. The Report “tracks the discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C,” says the UNEP press release.
Lorraine adds:Too bad Canada is not likely to join BOGA
Canada is unlikely to be on the podium when a group of countries led by Denmark and Costa Rica unveils the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) during this year’s United Nations climate conference, COP 26, in Glasgow. BOGA will gather a group of ambitious governments that are committed to delivering a managed and just transition away from oil and gas production.
Justin Trudeau sparked concern in the country's oil patch and hope among green advocates when he named two men with strong environmental records to lead his government's fight against climate change.
Steven Guilbeault was named environment and climate change minister as part of a major Cabinet shuffle. La Presse newspaper once dubbed Guilbeault "the green Jesus of Montreal." He has worked for green groups, including Greenpeace, for more than 20 years. In 2001 he climbed the CN Tower in Toronto to protest Canada's environmental record.
Jonathan Wilkinson, who spent two decades in the green tech sector and then served as predecessor to Guilbeault for two years, took over as minister of natural resources.
GASP signed this Call to Action for the New Cabinet
via a full page ad in the Hill Times
Fossils Push Back on Trudeau’s 2025 Emissions Reduction Promise
The fossil industry pushback has begun as the re-elected federal government begins looking at implementing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaign pledge to cap greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas at 2020 levels, then set five-year declining targets beginning in 2025.
Reuters notes: “The companies have prioritized repaying debt and returning cash to investors, but Trudeau wants producers to spend some profits on curbing emissions.”
The divestment movement is gaining momentum
- three articles
#1 - 1485 institutions with assets over $39.2 Trillion
have committed to divest from fossil fuels
In one of the largest divestment announcements of the decade long movement, on the eve of the COP26 climate summit, the fossil fuel divest-invest movement released a new report detailing how institutions representing an unprecedented total of $39.2 trillion worth of assets have now committed to some form of fossil fuel divestment, a figure that’s higher than the annual GDP of the United States and China combined. There is a great video on the link: https://www.stand.earth/DivestInvest2021
#2 - University of Toronto to fully divest
$4 billion endowment from fossil fuels by 2030
The University of Toronto has become the latest institution to commit to the divestment movement, saying Wednesday that it will sell off all fossil fuel investments in its $4-billion endowment fund by the end of 2030 to help fight climate change.
The commitment includes divesting from all direct investments in fossil fuels companies within the next year, divesting from indirect exposure to fossil fuels through things like pooled investments by 2030 and reaching a net-zero portfolio by 2050.
University of Toronto president Meric Gertler said: “The growing severity of the climate crisis now demands bold actions that have both substantive and symbolic impact.”
The university’s decision comes amid a wave of divestment commitments globally:
On Tuesday, Dutch pension giant ABP said it would sell off all of its fossil fuel assets, worth some 15 billion euros ($21 billion), because it didn’t see enough opportunity to push those companies towards sustainable practices fast enough. The pension fund said it would instead work to influence companies that use fossil fuels such as utilities, the auto industry and aviation.
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Canada’s second largest pension fund manager, made a similar commitment last month.
Harvard University also committed in September to divesting fossil fuels from its $42-billion (U.S.) portfolio, while a smattering of Canadian universities including UBC, University of Guelph and Concordia University have already made commitments.
#3 - Canada’s banks join Mark Carney, signalling a shift from the West’s fossil fuel dependency and delighting OPEC
"Canada’s six largest banks last week became the latest global financial institutions to join former central bank governor Mark Carney’s efforts to steer lending away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy investments.
By joining the United Nations-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance, led by Mr. Carney, the UN special envoy on climate action and finance, the big six banks formally committed to shifting their lending away from projects and activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions “to align with pathways to net zero by mid-century, or sooner.”
But there is still a long way to go on divestment ...
Two articles
#1 - G-20 public finance for fossil fuel projects dwarfs green energy support
More than twice as much money went to bankroll oil, gas and coal projects than for renewable energy between 2018 and 2020, according to an analysis of public finance released on Oct 28 by two environmental groups.
The Group of 20 (G-20) countries spent at least US$63 billion (per year financing oil, gas, and coal projects through their development finance institutions, export credit agencies and the multilateral development banks (MDBs) compared with about US$26 billion per year for renewables, the report by non-governmental organisations Friends of the Earth US and Oil Change International said.
"Public finance has an outsized impact because it 'de-risks' projects for other investors," said Ms Bronwen Tucker, public finance campaign manager at Oil Change International.
#2 - GASP salutes Elders for Climate Sanity for an excellent article in the Hamilton Spectator on big banks!
On climate change, big banks aren’t our friends
About a year ago, the Hamilton group Elders For Climate Sanity started a campaign to draw attention to what people can do about the climate emergency. With a giant cheque, signs, flyers and music, we started visiting various banks and inviting bank customers to “save the planet with their savings.” Here’s why: Since the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, Canadian banks have provided almost $700 billion to climate-destroying coal, gas and oil industries. More than $200 billion has been for gas and oil expansion projects.
Just imagine, RBC alone has put more than $14 billion (U.S.) into coal development! Even right now, our banks are supporting new tarsands projects. All this funding continues to enable extensive environmental devastation. Canada has recently been named the foremost emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. To read the full article - On climate change banks are not our friends - please visit GASP’s reference material for advocacy page - https://www.gasp4change.org/gasp-ed-education-newsletter/
Social Justice - Two good Wins!
#1 - Victory for Mi’kmaq as Nova Scotia’s Alton Gas Project Cancelled
Seven years after local Mi’kmaq Elders first moved to block a project that would have left salt caverns along Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie River full of natural gas, and the river itself dangerously saline, the company in charge of the project has pulled the plug.
Announcing its decision in a release last week, Alton, a subsidiary of Calgary-based energy company AltaGas, said the project has received “‘mixed support, challenges and experienced delay’,” writes CBC News.
#2 - Moose Cree First Nation hopes to finally work with Ontario government to save watershed
The North French River watershed sits on the traditional territory of the Moose Cree First Nation, which has been striving to protect the area from further development. Now the Moose Cree must work with the Doug Ford administration. According to an Ontario auditor general report, the Ford environmental track record includes:
stripping away environmental oversight,
opening Algonquin Park to logging and
allowing resource extraction in wilderness areas
But there is renewed hope for the watershed: talks are now underway to designate the area as an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) to preserve the Moose Cree First Nation’s water, land and cultural traditions from all-pervasive mining, logging, and development.
Before sunrise on Friday, October 22, concerned citizens gathered at an Annual Mayors Breakfast hosted by Caledon Mayor Allan Thompson
GASP members Michelle Tom, Sherry Ardell, Lily Noble and Carole Holmes joined a protest outside a business breakfast in Caledon on Oct 22 with Premier Ford as the guest speaker. GASP was part of a coalition from StopThe413, Ontario Disability Justice Network, Wellington Water Watchers (WWW), Climate Justice Guelph and the Central Students Association University of Guelph.
The groups came together to stop the sale of valuable farmland to developers as well as pre-empt the devastating climate and environmental impacts new highways, urban sprawl, aggregate extraction and expansion of industrial land will have on current and future generations.
"The Ford government is forcing the cost of sprawl onto taxpayers,” said Tom. “If we build within current urban boundaries, we can gently increase densities to ensure high active transportation modal share. Folks will have efficient transit and walkable neighbourhoods.”
Highway 413: If Doug Ford paves paradise, he’ll wind up with a rush-hour parking lot.
(Globe & Mail Editorial - October 20, 2021)
Right now, the Progressive Conservatives are paving a path to re-election next year out of the $6-billion ribbon of asphalt called Highway 413.
The G&M has criticized the project as a sprawl-spreading boondoggle. The planned route, which would connect the juncture of two 400-series highways – the 401 and the tolled 407 – in the west with Highway 400 to the east, with 11 interchanges along the way, would open up vast swathes of farmland to development. Less expensive options could better help ease congestion:
lowering tolls on the 407
expanding existing highways,
bringing in congestion pricing, and
not creating new commuters by adding to sprawl (best of all!).
For voters in the suburban GTA, a promise of more asphalt could be ballot-box gold. Voters should be wary, though. The 413 will create its own congestion. More highways means more development of car-based communities, which means more people who want to drive, and who have to. It’s called induced demand. If you build it, they will come.
Mr. Ford’s unnecessary highway would create a whole new generation of suburban homeowners condemned to a life in their cars, while paving over valuable farmland and plowing through the Greenbelt.
Catherine McKenna speaking onHamilton’s Current Affairs Show - The Oshow - October 19, 2021
Catherine Mckenna discusses
firm urban boundaries VS sprawl (Hamilton’s Current Affairs Show - The Oshow - October 19, 2021)
Catherine McKenna former Federal Minister of Environment & Climate, Infrastructure & Communities discusses climate change, #StopTheSprawl, urban densification, LRT and affordable housing. To view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va_viPWU62k
ALBERTA
Climate Emergency Declaration is ‘First Order of Business’ for Calgary Mayor-Elect Gondek
Gondek said: “We’re very good at energy production, and we are also leaders in innovative ways to practice energy production. We became fixated on our end product being oil and gas. So let’s start talking about the process again, and put ourselves on the map as a city that is the absolute leader at transitioning the economy. We can come up with sustainable, greener, cleaner solutions across all our business sectors,” she added.
Tues Nov 9 7:30 am (TO) Exploring the Military Emissions Gap
The panel event is just one of a number of COP26 events addressing climate, peace and militarism. Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has a useful directory of them -
Tues. Nov. 9 - Sunday Nov. 14 6-day Online Film Festival
Water and climate themes; meaningful discussions with filmmakers, newsmakers, and activists; and direct connections to action in your community. Illuminating water and climate themes, featuring meaningful discussions with filmmakers, newsmakers, and activists, and providing direct connections to action in YOUR community. For tickets and schedule:
A Virtual Discussion with Climate Activist and Author Katharine Hayhoe, to discuss her new book “Saving Us”
Thursday, November 18 8 pm Webinar with author of “Saving Us”
In Saving Us, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation. We need to find shared values in order to connect our unique identities to collective action. Dr. Hayhoe’s book gives you the tools you need to start talking about climate.
Carole and Lorraine urge you to sign the following two petitions:
To stave off the worst of the climate crisis, we need a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty based on the principles of no new exploration, a managed wind down of existing production, and a just transition must be a major topic of conversation. Sign the petition demanding world leaders start working on a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty at COP26:
Ask Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) to phase out polluting gas power
The newly released IESO plan completely ignores the endorsements by the 31 municipalities, including Oakville, Burlington, and Halton Hills, plus Ottawa who just endorsed last week, to reduce our reliance on gas plants. Urge the IESO to get serious about phasing out gas power. To sign the petition:
GASP member Kimberley Schols sent the following story profiling one woman's leadership and hope
Kristine McDivitt Tompkins has devoted more than three decades preserving and rewilding land to give back to Chile and Argentina.
Kristine Tompkins has conserved more land than any other single individual, calling it “capitalist jiujitsu”
for the planet.
Tompkins and her late husband spent more than $345 million to buy large swaths of land in Chile and Argentina, restore the grasslands, the forests, and the waterways — and then gave them back to the people. She has helped to preserve a total of 14.7 million acres of land and 30 million marine acres.
GASP notes that she is not spending her money on a 10-minute rocket trip!
