Tuesday, October 4, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

40 NGO's send letter to Trudeau: Join the Fossil Fuel Treaty at COP27

MobilizeTO works with many other environmental groups to lobby and advocate for urgent environmental action. Recently we endorsed the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign (OCEC) [add link to OCEC website] a nonpartisan group which promotes awareness on the Climate Crisis. They have developed a 12 point plan to bring Ontario’s targets in line with our Paris Commitments, and to work towards environmental sustainability. MobilizeTO supports this plan [we can add later how we plan to support the Plan or what actions we plan to take to help to achieve these goals, if any]

MobilizeTO, in co-operation with ClimateFast, Fridays4FutureTO, and other Toronto climate action groups conducted a successful campaign to obtain endorsement of Toronto City Council of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. More than 1000 Petitions were presented to City Hall and the resolution, presented by Michal Layton, and seconded by Shelly Carroll was adopted by a vote of 22-2 on July 15, 2021. A historic day for Toronto!

July 14^th, 2021 Toronto Council adopted a new Green Standard to accelerate energy-efficient building retrofits – another initiative that MobilizeTO had lobbied for through many letters and phone calls to Councillors. The new policies will help reduce emissions from housing as all new construction must meet net zero standards, while retrofitting existing City building stock. In future, all new structures will also be required to have electric vehicle charging and active transportation infrastructure.

In October 2020, MobilizeTO contacted Michael Poland from the Treaty team. In November and December, our group spoke to Stand.earth Safe Cities coordinator, and Seth Klein.  Folowing those meetings, in December, a presentation was made at one of Toronto Climate Action Network's (TCAN) meetings, followed by an invitation to TCAN members to participate in a planning meeting. Initial response was slow, but MobilizeTO continued to push forward trying to get groups to support the Treaty.