Climate Convergence Meeting

Climate Convergence is a grassroots network that aims to facilate connection and collaboration between diverse strands of the climate justice movement in Metro Vancouver.   Whether you’re a member of a group or a concerned individual, this is the place to connect and get involved with the climate justice movement. To learn more about our aims and guiding principles you can check out our Points of Unity and Community Agreement on the climate convergencewebsite.

At this month’s meeting we will focus on mobilizing for the August 17th public consultation on the Kinder Morgan Transmountain Pipeline (TMX) happening in Vancouver (venue and time have not been announced yet).  There are two sets of consultations currently being conducted by the Federal government: one on the TMX and another on the National Climate Plan.   See the summary of our last meeting below for more information on the TMX town halls and the National Climate Plan town halls.

Also this month we will have a speaker coming from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to talk about their current lockout and the exciting Delivering Community Power campaign, which is all about how our federal government can act to address climate change by modernizing the postal system.

Finally, we will have updates on a number of ongoing campaigns and a report from the Welcoming Committee on efforts to build Climate Convergence and how you can get involved.

As always, you can find a list of upcoming events and news articles on ourwebsite. If you are organizing an event you would like us to add to the site, please get in touch.

Looking forward to seeing you all at our next meeting!

In sol,
Claris Figueira on behalf of the Climate Convergence communications committee.

We had a very constructive discussion at the last meeting, with more than 20 people in attendance with a range of groups represented.  Our discussion revolved around two consultation processes the federal government has recently inititated:  National Climate Plan town halls, and consultations around the Kinder Morgan TMX.

1. National Climate Plan Town Halls
These town halls are already underway across the country, but we need to make sure local MPs are pushed to hold consultations. Many Liberal MPs are conveniently unaware of this process or are reluctant to hold consultations, and some NDP MPs have refused to engage with the process outright.  The People’s Climate Plan campaign is organizing both canvassing and PCP pre-meetings before national climate plan consultations.

Upcoming town halls:

July 12th, North Vancouver- facebook event here
July 14th, Surrey- facebook event here
July 16th, Burnaby North Seymour- facebook event here

**Check The People’s Climate Plan website for further details and updates.

2. TMX Ministerial Panel Town Halls
The dates for the TMX consultations has been released but we do not yet know venues or times.  Most of them are “invitational,” meaning they will not generally be open to the public.  The key events for the climate justice movement will be the “public town hall with open participation” events.  The main consultation we are aiming to mobilize around in Vancouver will beAugust 17th.  Check out the full schedule on the government website here.

Both the TMX Ministerial Panel consultations and the National Climate Plan town halls will be finished by late August, with the TMX report submitted to cabinet on November 1st and the National Climate Strategy expected to be presented in September when the First Ministers reconvene.

During the meeting we discussed how to strategically approach both the TMX Panel consultations and the National Climate Plan consultations.  That these consultations are happening at all is a victory for the climate justice movement, but many people expressed concern that we need to do more than merely participate in these consultations and town halls.  Already it is clear from consultations in Ontario and elsewhere that Liberal MPs are simply hearing what they want to hear.   We need to make sure we show up as a powerful, unified voice for climate justice and demand substantial change.

We have a definite schedule for the TMX consultations happening in mid to late August in Vancouver, which gives us time to organize around those events.  We’ll start working out messaging and organizing for the TMX actions at our meeting on July 27th – please come out and help!