Canadian Youth Climate Coalition

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Applications for CYD 2012 are now closed.

CYCC in brief

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition is a united front of youth from across Canada tackling the biggest challenge of our generation, the emerging climate crisis. Acting locally, provincially, federally, and internationally, we combine our forces to organize actions, influence government and implement concrete solutions. Working in schools and communities from coast to coast to coast, we are calling for and building a just and prosperous transition to the new Canada we all need to see.

Let’s Make 2012 The Year We Take Back Our Future

January 16th, 2012

Dear friends,

This past year I saw something begin to rise. Across Canada and around the globe we saw young people stand up and demand the right to build the just, liveable future of their dreams. My heart was filled with inspiration, and I began to believe that we might just have what it takes to change the world. This year, its time to prove it.

But we need your help.

Over the past year the CYCC has made building the youth climate movement across Canada our first priority, organizing a nation-wide training program that trained over 200 young climate justice organizers. We also launched Wings of Change, a by-youth-for-youth climate justice education project that we want to reach over 10,000 people with by then end of this year.

The fruits of this labour were seen in at COP17 in Durban, South Africa. The Canadian Youth Delegation held our country’s feet to the fire, letting Canada and the world know that our generation will not go quietly while our future hangs in the balance

But this is justbeginning.

As Wings of Change takes off this year, we are also expanding our training project, planning to hold trainings this spring and summer, all building towards one of our most ambitious plans; to bring hundreds of youth together from across Canada for PowerShift Canada 2012.

To do all this we need your help.

The CYCC is a small organization that does big things, and your support is what gives us the power to fight for our future.

Please help us take back our future.

Sincerely,

Cameron Fenton

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Follow the Canadian Youth Delegation in Durban, South Africa

November 19th, 2011

The Canadian Youth Delegation is a project of the CYCC, and acts as the voice of the Canadian youth climate movement at international United Nations climate conferences. Made up of twenty dedicated and inspiring young people from across the country, the delegation represents the demands of an entire generation working to create a just, safe, and livable future for all.

We are going to COP17 in Durban, South Africa for several reasons: to represent the youth climate movement in Canada, to hold our leaders accountable for their actions, to seek justice for those suffering the effects of climate change, and to seek solutions to one of the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced. Not only are we a group traveling to South Africa for two weeks, but we are active community organizers working to empower our communities to fight for climate justice, to give more strength to the existing climate movement, and to act in solidarity with frontline communities in Canada and across the globe.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJE3FklFAzE&w=640&h=480]

The CYD is made up of three teams: Media and Communications, Action and Strategy, and Policy and Research. The media and communications team is in charge of connecting with existing media outlets, creating the CYDaily newsletter throughout the negotiations in Durban, producing the CYD podcast, and helping other CYD members deal with media interactions. The Action and Strategy team plans CYD actions focused around various climate issues, create strategic plans for the CYD, and help everyone stay aligned with this strategy. The Policy team works to follow different policy streams in the negotiations, translate them into terms non-policy buffs can understand, and help the CYD create an official policy stance.

Click here to sign up for the CYDaily – the CYD’s newsletter produced daily in Durban throughout the negotiations, November 28-December 9.

Find out more about the roles of each team here.

All members of the CYD are also working to create a public discourse about climate change and climate justice. This includes delivering workshops about climate science, climate justice and real solutions to grade 5-12 classes across Canada, organizing community discussion groups around climate justice, and partnering with other climate-related organizations. The goal of these activities is to spur debate about what climate change means for Canadians, to broaden the diversity of the youth climate movement, and to increase the capacity of the CYCC.

It is crucial to acknowledge that we will not be able to stop climate change in the halls of any international meeting until we create a mass, self-empowering, grassroots movement that is demanding and creating a more just world. We need as many people as possible organizing and taking action at home; find out how you can get involved here.

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Ask A Negotiator

October 25th, 2011

Got a few questions for the Canadian Government’s negotiators to the UNFCCC? Wondering just who exactly they’re looking out for when they block Kyoto, “forget” about the tar sands or label the historical responsibility for climate change a “side car issue”?

From now until the end of the COP17 negotiations, we’ll be accepting questions from Canadian youth that we’ll bring to our meetings with Canada’s official negotiators. Look! The submission form is right here!

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People Hugging: UNFCCC Forest Policy Needs A Climate Justice Framework

October 24th, 2011

By Matthew Chisholm

The importance of the world’s forests and the role that environmental activism surrounding forests have helped to shape a public perception that being an environmentalist means that you’re a “tree hugger.” While my “first word” as a child was in fact “tree,” I organize around climate justice because I hug people – or at least care about them.

Over the last few years it has become commonplace to hear that famous phrase describing anyone’s neighborhood environmentalist. While at school buddies would joke: “Chisholm! So what are you doing huggin’ all those them trees?” I would always swiftly reply, “I don’t hug trees nearly as much as I hug people.” Now before I bore you with more hippie-speak, all this is justified in the context of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and the recent policy developments surrounding the use of certain forest conservation methods to curb GHG emissions.

While large tropical forests, abundant with enormous trees to hug, are the focal point of policies like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) or Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forests (LULUCF), it is an imperative that the “people factor” (people hugging) must not be ignored when crafting global climate policy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Permaculture and Climate Change

October 14th, 2011

By Chris Bisson

At the international climate negotiation level there seems to be a failure to address the gap between the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the adaptation of vulnerable communities to the effects of climate change. In this article I will show that permaculture – a design art aimed at fostering resilient and socially just human living spaces, may just be what is needed to do this.

There is a problem with separating adaptation and mitigation, and that is that is some ways they cancel each other out. Adaptation strategies may involve highly emitting solutions, and mitigation programmes may render significant population vulnerable to environmental changes. One example is the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) programme devised and agreed to by parties of the UNFCCC. REDD would set strictly managed forest conservation areas in financially poor states as an offset for industries emitting in industrialized ones. Though questionable as to whether this is an effective mitigation strategy, the worst aspect of this programme is the significant barriers for certain populations to adapt to climate change. Many of the World’s peoples most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are reliant on forests for safe and appropriate sources of food, water, materials and energy, to restrict access to these forests would force reliance on commercial supply chains for their basic needs. It would also displace many people to urban areas or places prone to human-made or natural hazards. Read the rest of this entry »