events

Fridays for Future Ottawa
Ottawa Climate Strike
23 September 2022

THANK YOU to all of you who came out to the Fridays for Future Ottawa/Gatineau Climate Strike this morning.
It is important we support our youth in their quest for Climate Reparations and Justice!

SMARTNet Alliance
Sustainability Showcase and
Electric Vehicle Exhibition
THIS WEEKEND!​ September 24 - 10am
Horticultural Building, Landsdowne Park (Free)

Get ready for Eastern Ontario's Largest Sustainability Event! Featuring a range of sustainable businesses to help you improve your home energy efficiency and an electric vehicle exhibition including free test drives. Come talk sustainability with industry experts and insiders. Get inspired for future projects and hear about the latest trends and technologies out there.
​Your free ticket also gets you a free transit ride to and from the event.

Check out the schedule HERE
More information + Registration HERE

CAFES Ottawa
Eco-Debates: Ottawa
​Mayoral Race 2022
​September 28 - 7pm
Centretown United Church (507 Bank St)

What do Ottawa's mayoral candidates have to say about climate justice? Find out!
​Attend the September 28 all-candidates moderated debate happening at Centretown United Church. Use the link below for details on each Q&A as well as on the final debate.

More information + Registration HERE

Group of 78
Annual Policy Conference
Multiple Sessions - ​September 23-30
Online ($40)

Households and businesses globally are suffering debt distress, exacerbated further by sharply higher interest rates. Global trade is in disarray as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war. Moreover, failure to address the existential threat posed by the climate crisis make all other international problems, save the threat of nuclear war, seem trivial in comparison. In this larger context, transforming international finance will be necessary, if not sufficient, to secure economic, social and planetary justice.

More information + registration HERE

---

ENVIRO-ADVOCACY  BE HEARD!

In 2020, the City of Ottawa published Energy Evolution, Ottawa's primary strategy to fight climate change. It's enactment is at risk due to budget pressures and implementation delays. The 2022 draft budget prioritizes road expansion and transit fare increases, which will increase carbon emissions, over climate action. Join with Ecology Ottawa: Demand of our new City Council sustained funding and direct action follow-through for our climate goals.
Protecting, funding and implementing Energy Evolution is vital to achieving Ottawa's Green House Gases emission reduction targets.

ReImagine Ottawa continues its work of "freeing City Council from developer influence".  It is refocusing and gearing up for the October municipal election and is looking for volunteers to get involved. Find out more and get in touch HERE.

For those interested, Horizon Ottawa presents their slate of candidate Endorsements for the upcoming City of Ottawa elections.

ENVIRO-BITS

Energy Evolution is the City of Ottawa's community energy transition strategy, a framework which outlines how to achieve Ottawa's Green House Gas emission reduction targets. Success requires we reduce energy demand, phase out fossil fuels, and increase use of renewable resources. Five  areas of action, including  electrifying personal vehicles, retrofitting existing residential buildings, diverting organic waste from landfills to create renewable natural gas, retrofitting existing commercial buildings, and transitioning to zero-emission commercial fleets would account for about 80% of required emissions reductions.

FridaysForFuture: Viral Growth!
FridaysForFuture remains a youth-led movement with fourteen million people active in 7,500 cities.  They strike to demand governments utilize the best science available to keep global temperature rise below 1.5C, and to ensure climate reparations.  Reparations are not viewed as charity but as a transformative justice process where the richest 1% are held responsible for the climate devastation their actions have caused, make restitution to those affected, and where political power is returned to the people. Friday, join the strike for Climate Reparations and Justice.

ENVIRO-ACTIONS

Hope you all enjoyed a refreshing summer and managed to find some time for environmental reading, listening, or watching.  We will maintain our lists for your further Personal Enrichment.
But now for action!
September is a good time to prepare for an important environmental event on October 23rd, the day Ottawans vote for a new city council. 
We suggest three September actions:
1.  Find out who is running in your ward and what they stand for, or check out some of the candidate debates available through this playlist.
2.  Check out Ecology Ottawa's Election Campaign page to see why this election has to be about the environment.
3.  Attend the CAFES Ottawa Eco-Debate for the Ottawa Mayoral Race on- line or in person on Sept 28, at 7pm (see upcoming events, above).

---

good news!

Youth-Led Climate Lawsuit

Four years ago, the Ontario Government cancelled the Cap and Trade Act, and replaced existing climate targets with a significantly weaker 2030 target.  Ecojustice lawyers, representing the seven young people, propose to demonstrate how these actions "violated the constitutional right to life, liberty and the security" of all Ontarians, but that young people will primarily bear the costs of climate inaction.
This could set a vital legal precedent. The lawsuit will finally reach full hearing in the Ontario Supreme Court this September 12-14.

UN Holds Banks to Account for Greenwashing.

Last October, Canada's five major banks joined the U.N.'s GFANZ, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, agreeing to align their lending and investment portfolios to net zero by 2050.  Yet the past year found all five among the fossil fuel industry's largest funders.  Criticism the banks were using membership for public relations, not climate action, led to a clarification of criteria for membership to include actual demonstration of their phasing out of unabated fossil fuels.
Read more HERE.

Nova Scotians find "eelgrass" a secret treasure.  Dalhousie University and the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax are working on a "reforestation" project to harvest and transplant eelgrass to replenish the valuable, but shrinking species.  Eelgrass not only boosts shoreline biodiversity by providing shelter for sea-life and protecting shores from erosion, it also stores carbon and methane emissions; so it's a secret weapon in the fight against climate change.
An acre of eelgrass can store over 335 kilograms of carbon per year.

---