Climate & Environmental Organizations Call on Vancouver City Council to support the Climate Emergency Action Plan

Stand.earth, Sustainabiliteens, Our Time, Dogwood, and others call for City of Vancouver to take action to help end the climate emergency

November 4, 2020, Vancouver, BC – Today, the following climate and environmental organizations call on Vancouver City Council to approve, in full, the Climate Emergency Action Plan.

Nine organizations, including Stand.earth, Sustainabiliteens, Our Time, 350.org, Vancouver Just Recovery Coalition, Climate Justice UBC, Georgia Strait Alliance, Dogwood, and Abundant Transit BC are uniting in their support for the City of Vancouver to take action to help end the climate emergency.

The City Council will consider a report from city staff developed over 18 months. The action plan is in response to a unanimous vote from Council in support of Councillor Christine Boyle’s January 2019 motion to declare a Climate Emergency to ramp up climate action with a strong focus on equity. Council reaffirmed this support with another unanimous vote in April 2019 on a high-level Climate Emergency Action Plan. It continues the City of Vancouver’s work to be a city that supports a clean economy, emission reductions, and an opportunity to be a leader in the world.

“The City of Vancouver is part of a growing movement of more than 40 municipalities in the U.S. and Canada passing policies to prevent fossil fuel expansion and accelerate renewable energy infrastructure. The council’s groundbreaking Climate Emergency Action Plan is a powerful move toward reducing the climate pollution emitted from transit, transportation, and buildings in the ‘world’s greenest city’. Once passed, it will help accelerate the transition to renewables, protect residents from the threat of fossil fuels in a just and equitable manner, and spur more communities to join this growing movement gaining steam across North America.” – Liz McDowell, SAFE Cities Campaign Director at Stand.earth and Vancouver resident

“COVID has demonstrated how disruptive a crisis can be to our lives, communities, and economy, but all scientific models show that the climate crisis is exceptionally harmful and disruptive and will only worsen without drastic action. Bold emergency actions are needed at all levels.” – Atiya Jaffar, Senior Campaigner Canada, 350.org

The Climate Emergency Action Plan proposes restructuring our city for massive economic opportunity and making Vancouver a climate leader with enormous investment opportunities.

The plan presented is a high-level document that outlines several projects that require further analysis, development, and consideration. This should be seen as an opportunity for the City Council to support City staff to move forward to further work on several bold actions that will eventually come back to the City Council.

Climate & Environmental Organizations call on all Vancouver citizens and businesses to contact the City Council to encourage them to support the proposed plan.

”For generations, our city heavily prioritized mobility choices that damaged our communities, air quality, and the climate. This plan starts the work to right historic and ongoing wrongs in how we allocate and pay for road space. If passed, not only will Vancouver be better positioned to meet our 2030 GHG targets, we’ll be a fairer, healthier, and safer city.” — Mike Barrett Bryan-Soron, Director, Abundant Transit BC

“Voting on this action plan is the most important thing this City Council will do. If you follow through on your past commitments to climate action, we can create solutions that are just, green, and economically viable. These solutions will improve lives and make Vancouver a more equitable and inclusive city. However, your words about fighting climate change mean less than nothing if you don’t act on them now.” -Naia Lee, Sustainabiliteens Organizer

“The success of CEAP will be contingent on the effective implementation of this framework and the centering of Indigenous, Black and other racialized peoples, while also considering how intersections of class, gender identity and sexual orientation, ability, age, immigration status and others produce different experiences, vulnerabilities and unequal outcomes. Tackling the Climate Emergency requires innovative, progressive and urgent actions that must be built on an equal commitment to equity and diversity.” – Kimberley Wong, Co-Chair of the Vancouver Just Recovery Coalition

“The Vancouver Just Recovery Coalition urges City Council to pass and fund the CEAP in its entirety. The Coalition strongly believes that our city is safer and healthier when we support vulnerable communities and we strongly support the equity approach proposed within the CEAP.” –  Matthew Norris, Co-Chairs of the Vancouver Just Recovery Coalition

Media Contacts:

1. Talal Wolf, 604-500-0411 (Sustainabiliteens)

2. Liz McDowell, 604-219-6337 (Stand.earth)

3. Matthew Norris, Co-Chair of the Just Recovery Coalition, info@vancouverjustrecovery.ca, 604-809-1057

4. Kimberley Wong, Co-Chair of the Just Recovery Coalition, info@vancouverjustrecovery.ca, 778-985-1575