 Welcome to Kyros climate action dialogue building momentum for a fossil fuel non proliferation treaty. My name is Beth Lormer and I'm the ecological justice program coordinator at Kyros Canada and I will be the moderator of tonight's event. So thank you so much for taking the time to join us today for this conversation. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are gathering today on the traditional territories of indigenous people across Turtle Island. We pay respect to the traditional guardians of the land upon which we live, work and play. I am joining you today from the traditional unceded and surrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe peoples here on the banks of the Kitchassibi also known as the Great River or the Ottawa River in Ottawa. We acknowledge that indigenous peoples are the traditional guardians of Turtle Island on the land also known as Canada. We recognize their long standing and ongoing relationship with this territory which includes unceded and traditional land and acknowledge our duty to walk with and alongside reconciliation and decolonization efforts. Reconciliation is an ongoing process requiring unlearning colonial practices and history alongside relearning our shared past present and future. At this time, I invite you to take a moment to place your feet on the ground as you are able and take a moment to acknowledge the territory where you are joining us from today. Thank you and welcome to people who may have just joined. We were just giving a land acknowledgement and taking a moment to acknowledge the land that we're joining from today. I encourage you to keep introducing yourselves to one another in the chat and just some other housekeeping notes. Please keep yourself muted during tonight's speaking portions of the of the event. And of course, when it's time to ask questions or when we're in our small group discussions, you can unmute and go and speak, but just keep yourself muted to respect our speakers. This event will be recorded and we are recording it as you will have heard the notice we won't be recording or sharing the small group discussion in breakout rooms. But but we will be sharing out the speaking portion of tonight's event. So do look for that. And yeah, I think I will just provide a bit of overview before we get started with our speakers. And so, yeah, tonight's climate action dialogue is part of Cairo's climate action week, which runs from September 11 to 17. And the focus this week is on the main, the main cause of the climate crisis, which is fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels accounts for almost 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions and a rapid transition away from fossil fuel extraction and use is critical. For limiting global warming. We know this yet major climate agreements like the Paris agreement and outcomes from COP COP 27 and other conferences do not even mention the term fossil fuels. And since COP 21 in Paris in 2015, where global leaders agreed to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global fossil fuel consumption has continued to rise. Many countries that signed the Paris agreement such as Canada continue to approve new fossil fuel projects worldwide, even though we know that the burning of the world's fossil fuel reserves that we have already access to will result in seven times more emissions than what is compatible with keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. So we need a treaty to end the expansion of fossil fuels and accelerate a transition to clean energy. And that is why the focus of this week's climate action week is on that very subject. And this event and other calls from the global climate strike are calling just for that. So the fossil fuel non proliferation treaty initiative is a global effort to foster international cooperation to accelerate this transition to clean energy for everyone. And our first speaker is going to to share more details about the treaty initiative shortly, but I just wanted to add that Kyra's Canada has endorsed the treaty initiative back in November of 2020. And is part of a growing movement of faith based voices that are calling for fossil fuel phase out the World Council of Churches formally endorsed the treaty initiative in June of this year. And also in June, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion signed the treaty, following a resolution that was made at the Anglican Consultative Council in February of 2023. And these announcements just build on other faith leader and communities that have been endorsing the initiative over the last couple of years. There have also been a significant number of youth voices and youth led organizations that have endorsed the treaty initiative. And in this week leading up to the global climate strike we want to hear from them and amplify their demands for fossil fuel phase out. So we are going to hear from two young people today, but first we will have an overview of the treaty initiative. So I would like to now present our first speaker, Claudia, Camparo and Reina, who is the partnerships coordinator with the fossil fuel and non proliferation treaty network, based in Mexico City. Claudia has worked collectively with NGOs and grassroots organizations environmental justice issues since 2005. She worked with the Council of Canadians, Food and Water Watch and Greenpeace, Mexico. And she is a member of the Allianza Mexicana contra el fracking. So welcome, Claudia. Thank you so much for joining us today and I'll pass it over to you. Yes, yes, or lamp. How are you all thank you so much for this invitation. I'm happy to join the conversation and. Thank you so much for all this board that Kidos has been signaling towards the treaty and thank you so much for for organizing this event. Let me know if my connection is okay it's been failing me today so if you feel that it's that you let me know so I switch off my video. Okay, I'm going to try to share my screen hopefully this will work for me. It does. Okay, so what is initiative about we like to call it a bold global policy demand to really change the What we have right now towards a fossil fuel free future. And we know that climate action failure is very high risk and a very high threat to everybody globally and I'm guessing you've been seeing and feeling it from wherever you're joining. Our things are changing very quickly we had the herbal heat with that affected. Most of North America. And now we can see the terrible flooding happening around the world and this definitely getting worse. We know that we have a gap, and we call it a production gap. It basically means that what is already being extracted in the coal mines and oil wells and gas wells is 110 more than what can be produced if we want a scenario of survival. So, this means we have to change. We have existing projects that go beyond what we call the carbon budget so the carbon budget that allows us a likelihood of 50% to stay in a 1.5% 1.5. Degrees centigrade is already above so this is not the new project. This is only what's being produced currently. Okay. We also know that even when we share that there are more renewables happening fossil fuels are still being used that hasn't changed. There has been some increase in renewables, but fossil fuels are still being extracted still being burned. And they represent the majority of the energy that we use around the world. So, what's what are we facing right now, if we don't have an agreement on fossil fuel production. We're risking and we're making harder the transition transition is something that we must have it's inevitable. If we keep extracting fossil fuels. It will only make it harder. It creates what we called strength and financial term on. What does that mean it means that there will be infrastructure being built that we cannot use because we're really increasing the temperature so much that there's a point where we're have to stop but the investment on this infrastructure will have prevented other kinds of investment for instance in renewable energy or in schools or in hospitals right so we're using money in the wrong way. If we don't have this agreement we risk workers we risk communities. It delays renewable energy expansion expansion it delays economic diversification, right, the fact that many countries depend on the extraction of fossil fuels for their economy. It consolidates the powerful pro fossil fuel political constituencies. I think in North America we know how much they can actually get away with these powerful interests of fossil fuel industry. It increases the risk of technical economical legal and political lock in where it's much more difficult to have change it increases the risks of dangerous geo engineering these non proved ideas of how we can manipulate the climate which are nonsense. And it risks, of course, warming well beyond 1.5 centigrade. We know that for instance international energy agency tells us that Antonio Gutierrez who is the Secretary General of the United Nations has said investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness. This is very clearly stating that this is completely unreasonable. So the Paris agreement doesn't even mention fossil fuels about the Paris agreement has all this conversation on reducing emissions. And it's a way that we delay the hard conversation that we need to wean ourselves out of fossil fuels. Okay, so this is something that has been lagging in the international agreements towards changing the current status. And there's also a very important thing that we need to know this problem is terribly unjust. The countries that are not able to transition are going to have a very difficult time. But there are countries that have the capacity to transition and they actually have the responsibility of having done emissions for longer and need to support the transition in other parts of the world. So that's why in the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty we talk about three pillars. We need a just transition. So we need to help countries to move their economies away from fossil fuels. We need non-proliferation. We need to stop making this crisis worse. Stop expanding. We know that we cannot have a future with fossil fuels. Why? Why are we still opening new coal mines and new oil and gas wells around the world? And we need a fair face-up which is what I was saying about production. Already what's in production today takes us away for the future that we need. So we need to face out the existing fossil fuel production to limit the warming below 1.5 with wealthy nations moving first and fastest. So what are the strategies that we engage in in order to make this happen? Well, we aim to catalyze international cooperation to make this treaty possible. We aim to build concentrated power to decrease the social license that the fossil fuel industry still has to operate around the world. We need to build public support with regional partners to make sure that we can have this face-out that we urgently need. And we need to scale compelling storytelling and communications to amplify this demand. So we are a truly global initiative. Our steering committee members are from around the world and the organizations that have joined and endorsed the treaty are from around 117 countries. Pardon me. We have partners from around the world that are actively promoting the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty. And we have many endorsers that such as Kyros today are supporting our work through, you know, a specific moment and invitations that we are very grateful for in order for us to spread the word elsewhere. Today, we have more than 2000 civil society organizations endorsing more than 3000 scientists. We have more than 600 parliamentarians from around the world, 100 and well noble laureates, more than 90 cities and some national governments, and more than 2000 youth activists and leaders promoting the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty. We now have been publicly supported by five nation states. These are five nation states of the Pacific and these are countries that have traditionally led the discussion internationally for stopping or doing something about what is happening with our global warming. So we're really very grateful to these nations for all the commitment and the support that they have shown. Well, these are pictures of moments where we have managed to get good impact in press. One of those moments was when we got the support of noble laureates. Of course, we also have the support of many faith institutions. Right now we're nearly 400 faith institutions that have signed the faith that you can find in our website. I'll copy and paste the link after I speak. And we are proud to say that this comes from many different faiths from all over the world, but here we're showing how in particular we had a very big moment when a vacuum cardinal called also for the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty. In the health atmosphere, in the health constituency, we have support of the DOPE show, which has been very significant and very important in a call for the nonproliferation treaty. And yeah, more nearly 400 also health institutions, communities of doctors, nurses from around the world making this the argument of our health as central to the need to face out fossil fuels. The European Parliament has all supported this call asking nation states to join and work towards this proposal. And many cities from around the world have also joined the call and sent themselves a call for their national government to join this. To join this proposal. Youth activists have been really supportive, very vocal in speaking towards the need of the fossil fuel treaty and we are also grateful for their leadership. As I've mentioned, more than 600 parliamentarians from 84 countries led by countries from the south have been supporting the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty. And just recently this is fresh out of the oven, the state of California has formally endorsed the proposal of a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty and this happened through a resolution brought by Senator Gonzalez and it went through the Senate and the House in order to be recognized. So what can you do to support in yours, but also help us promote the fossil fuel initiative through whatever means are in your possibilities. There are many materials in our social networks and such that are going to be of interest of you we also have lots of research on. And I have a very particular invitation right now that we are preparing a webinar on the safeguarding the Amazon. This is going to happen next Tuesday and I'm hoping you want to join we're going to have speakers. Indigenous leaders from different countries in the Amazon region but also government representatives and this live stream is happening in English, Spanish and Portuguese so you can join and listen in in English if you don't know the other languages. But this is quite exciting moment and we are definitely supporting all the activities that are going to happen in New York next week around the climate and thank you so much. Thank you so much Claudia for that really informative overview of the treaty initiative. And we will be sharing some of those links that Claudia mentioned. If she shares them now that's fine but I have a list of a few that I'll share at the end of tonight's gathering. And so I'll just open it up for questions from from Claudia before we continue if there's anything to ask of her. Yes, and just unmute yourself. Yeah. Claudia went so quickly. That was hard to get this. I mean there was a lot of material, and I think it could have taken twice as long for us to get it all and make notes and take it all in. Would it would it help Claudia are you able to share the slide deck that you that you just showed us or that would help. Yeah, I'll set it that way and I can share for sure. And we will make sure that that gets circulated to all the folks that registered. Yeah, there is a lot of things that requires more detail I'm happy to try to address. I do have a question here from the chat. Are there any countries on the cusp of signing the treaty that you're aware of. In addition to this to the five or six, the block from the Pacific. My vocabulary fails me a cusp is like nearly. That's fair. So I'm almost almost ready to sign on. Are there any countries. Yeah, as you may know, this is not an easy task for governments from around the world. They have to commit to these three papers and making sure we have the just transition and stop expansion. And stop, you know, having the plan for the face out. So these are three things that are not easy tasks. So the first field treat does not draft it yet. The government needs to draft it. And we are working actively with some committed government to join the leadership that these specific countries already have in calling. Calling for the commitment to draft the treaty and then bring other countries on board. So, I can share that we are, for instance, working and have had a very good response with the Columbia government. We currently have a government in Columbia that has already committed to stop expansion and is actively talking about what the just transition looks like. So that's already in their discourse and they recently joined Boca, which is also an initiative towards stopping the, the, the production of so feels so this is something that is still in the works. We are hoping that other countries in other places of the world, but this is, of course, something that takes time that requires a lot of negotiation within the country. And I cannot say that all things are ready for that to happen in other places of the world, but we're definitely have many other leads that we're working on. Great. Thanks, Claudia. I have another question about concern. What are some of the current geo engineering proposals that maybe of concern and Carla, I don't know if you're able to come on and just maybe provide a bit more context about your question. Yeah, I mentioned that in my presentation. That's why. Yeah. You can you can just respond that I just wondered if I probably wanted to add anything. Okay. So, yeah, geo engineering actually blows my mind and I have to say that it's not an a specialty of mine so I cannot, you know, talk into a lot of detail. Some of the proposals of geo engineering are around. Okay, we know that when volcanoes erupt, they block some sunlight. So the particular matter that goes into the atmosphere might do some cooling effect. Why don't we bombard the atmosphere and just make it as a huge volcanic eruption around the world. Right. What could go wrong. These are the sort of things that people that don't want to change the dependence that we right now have on fossil fuels are proposing. Right. Just, just let new pollutants come into the air and let's forget about the agricultural consequences that that might bring and the fact that we don't know all the ecological factors come together. Such. So, these are the sort of ideas that you're engineering take and also why don't we feel the ocean with nutrients for photosynthesis to come about and So, these are the sort of things that Jerry internet does and the other big thing that happens is the idea of carbon capture and storage, which is very, very limited the experimentation that has happened and it's not clear that it could be scaled up and whether that is truly one solution. It's really very expensive and it basically just shows the unwillingness to change in something that we already knows that doesn't only harm the climate, but also harms all the people that are around the cycle. The extraction, the processing, the burning. We know that air pollution kills people around the words millions of people around the world. We just have cleaner day couple of days ago and we know that we need a more healthy future for for for our children. So, why are we just hanging on to this toxic. Because we're not willing to change I think the future must be better for us if we commit to this change. And so these are just a few examples of of the distractions to stop the action toward facing out fossil fuels. Thank you so much Claudia that was, that was a really thorough response. We have what is maybe one last question that we can take from Claudia and then we're going to move along in the programming to our next two speakers. But just a question quickly about being asked to support the formation of a treaty so I don't know if that's something that I can answer just briefly from from where I sit in kind of organizing this event tonight but they're the endorsing organizations are being asked, you know, we are we are endorsing a treaty initiative so an initiative for nation states to come together and form a treaty. And that's what the endorsement means kind of from from what from my perspective. And so, all of us here as individuals are called to support the treaty initiative as individuals and if we are members of organizations to do that too and then to call on our elected officials and representatives to also kind of throw their weight behind that initiative I don't know if Claudia you'd like to ask to add anything to that, but just to say that it's very inspiring how things help people come to initiative with ideas and so towards supporting this and many of the cities that have joined this initiative have learned so because there's been a group of concerned citizens that have gone to their representatives and told them about it and insisted and no engage in meetings and such. There, there's an African artist in a Maria she's so lovely she has done a beautiful banner of the non proliferation treaty with sewing it's kind of patchwork, I would say. I'll show I'll share a picture with you right now. Youth activists have just come around with us and just taken away the banner and take it towards, you know, mobilizations within different moments and just recently I received, you know, an op ed from a Mexican academic she heard about the treaty and she wrote her op ed about it and she hadn't even started contacting us so it's really about where you are and what would you like to do and if if you feel this is a good idea and you want to invite others. Please do this is this is a campaign that has been successful precisely thanks to this creativity and this generosity of people from different parts of the world. Thank you so much Claudia and I see a few more questions have come in and we will have a chance to maybe bring those discussions into our small groups. Following our next speaker so just hold on to those and hopefully we can have some, some discussion that will help answer them or kind of advance the conversation. I just want to thank Claudia again I know she's going to have to leave at the top of the hour so she may just disappear on us, but I'm just grateful for her presence here today and for sharing the presentation so thank you. And we are now going to move on to our next speaker, who is Tia Kennedy. Tia is an indigenous rights activist and youth leader in her community. She carries Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe teachings from Oneida Nation of the Thames and Walpole Island First Nation. She is the founder of Can you quay consulting a company that empowers organizations to address discrimination and develop the necessary skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values to promote meaningful and effective interactions with indigenous peoples. Tia is a rising girl fellow from 2021. She has spoken at the global women's forum in Paris. They're right here right now global climate summit and one was one of the youth delegates of the Kairos for the love of creation delegation to COP 27 in Egypt last November. She currently supports indigenous youth with cultural leadership programming at indigenous sport and wellness Ontario. And so grateful to have you with us tonight Tia, and I'll pass it over to you. Hi, thank you for that wonderful introduction. It's great hearing the previous presenter I'm looking forward to the next speaker as well. I come from two communities. I mostly follow my national base side. Those are my, my matrilineal side that I follow. And for the national bay people we have a really close relationship with the water. So I think that's where a lot of my water activism comes from. We're known as the people of the Great Lakes, and we've used the waterways as our highways for centuries. My national bay community, what pull Island First Nation. It's surrounded by water and unfortunately the lake that we're surrounded by it's just downstream from Chemical Valley. And so that's located in Sarnia, Ontario. And that's where 80% of Canada's petrochemical industry operates 24 seven. And they're still legally allowed to pollute in our waters today. This is a serious impact that we face in our communities of environmental racism. It infringes on our, you know, our sustenance or our food and know the fish that we consume the plants that we use as medicine. Even though my community, what pool does have a water treatment facility, meaning that, you know, the water that comes from the taps is being treated. Our animal and plant relatives don't get that same, that same fortune. You know, those and we still consume them. And so we're still being impacted by industry and extractive industries. My other community and I donation of attempts worse. We were on a ball of water advisory at the beginning of this year for about three or four months. I think we're off it now, but it comes off and on. We're located by the Thames River Deshkin Zeebing. And we're just about 2025 minutes outside of London, Ontario. We have a lot of experts who actually does a lot of the dumping of sewage within to our waterways. And so again, you know, the fish and the plants are all very impacted and I also volunteer and work at a land based camp within my community of one item nation of the Thames. And so we, we've been monitoring the climate. We're not more closely because we're helping the community do research environmental research and the impacts of climate change. It's, it's pretty crazy. It's pretty serious. I mean, our hunting season where we're behind on it because of the weather is changing. You know, this summer was so hot that we could hardly do any trapping and even just going outside to try and take the youth to get medicines. It's so extremely hot that, you know, it becomes really difficult for them to stay outside that long. And unfortunately, you know that close river that would be really great to cool off in is being impacted by sewage. So we can't even cool off in our waterways and our water systems. And these are really effects of climate change that we're experiencing firsthand within our communities. As Indigenous First Nations communities, you know, we're seeing it in front of our eyes. I think most Canadians are too, but for us, I feel like because we're so closely connected to the environment and we have that relationship, even while I'm out, you know, noticing the trees. So the trees are some of my helpers as spiritual helpers. And so I noticed them and how they're being knocked down from the high winds. And so a lot of people don't understand that even though we're not experiencing tornadoes, we're still experiencing high strong winds that are impacting our environment and impacting our trees, which impacts us and our oxygen and the way that we can breathe. Some of my work, I did a documentary on how my family was directly impacted by the water crisis. And, you know, all my grandma and her three sisters, they all passed away very young from cancer. And so under the ages of 60, starting at the ages of 30, they all passed away from cancer that was caused by environmental factors and the dumping of our water. And this comes from, you know, petrochemical industries, these extractive industries. And when you live on reservations, the way that the land is kind of split up, it's like each family has their own area. And so on our street, there's probably about 15 people in our family that have had cancer. And it's all related to the water and the dumping that's happening. So when it comes to this treaties and us moving away from fossil fuels, I am very much for it, for the treaty, and moving away from fossil fuels. I worked for the Indigenous Services Canada for a little bit in the governance branch. And while I was working there, there was an elder that told me, you know, you really have to be careful with the government because there's a lot of trickery that goes on. And so as Indigenous peoples, it's kind of been ingrained in us to critique the government and not always have trust in them, unfortunately. And I think Canadians are starting to more so realize that, you know, we have so much power as individuals and as communities to create the change that we want to see in the world. And so it's really up to us to move away from, you know, fossil fuels on an independent level as well. And so not only pushing our governments and our cities to move forward and signing these treaties, but also thinking at how what we can do at an individual level and not supporting companies like RBC and who are huge investors in fossil fuels. And actually the fossil fuel industry has a direct linkage to the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls genocide that's happening, where Indigenous women are 10 times murdered at the rate as regular Canadians females. And so they noticed in areas where there's tar sands and extractive industries, there's usually a more predominant male workforce. And that's causing these man camps that are bringing in women, Indigenous women, and they're being assaulted. And oftentimes that linkage is happening at these man camps with our missing and murdered Indigenous women. And so there's a lot of reasons why we need to phase out fossil fuels. But I think when I think about my ancestors and how they signed those treaties with the Canadian government, there was a lot to consider. And if there's one thing that I can hope that happens when we do sign this treaty. It's thinking about accountability and how can, you know, if these treaty is broken, how can we ensure accountability going forward. Because as Indigenous peoples, you know, we were experiencing broken treaties and what we originally signed for and what we had thought was a lot different than what's happening right now. And so for us, the land wasn't something that we could sell because the land is part of who we are. You know, in our creation stories, as our Anishinaabe creation story, we call our higher power creator, Gajemnado. And when he lowered us down as human beings, he told us that we had this role and this responsibility to be caretakers and maintain that balance here on Mother Earth. And when he lowered our bodies to the ground, our limbs, they fell across Turtle Island. And so that story, it tells us that we're a part of Mother Earth and that our ancestors are part of her. You know, we call the rocks our grandfathers and those plants are grandmothers. And that's just a representation of how we need to look at nature and how we need to be in relation to her. And that what we do to Mother Earth, we're directly doing to ourselves and that harm that we're doing to ourselves. And so it's incredibly important that we move away and phase out from fossil fuels. We come together and sign these treaties that phase out fossil fuels. But at the same time, when we're thinking about that just transition and how the wealthiest countries as in Canada need to do this quickly, we need to think about the nations that are within this nation and how, you know, they don't even have access to clean water. So how are they supposed to, you know, start getting electric cars and putting up batteries? Those are all things to consider when we do negotiate these treaties that needs to be looked at in a holistic way from a bird's eye view. And yeah, there's just, there's a really a lot to consider. However, I'm not in disagreements. I totally support this treaty. I just think, you know, when we do do this, it needs to be done in the right way in a holistic way that encompasses a plethora of values. And I think, I think that's pretty much it for me at the top of my head. I mean, I think one other thing I just wanted to mention too was recently I attended this beautiful retreat. It was a climate retreat for land defenders and water protectors. There's Indigenous folks that came from all parts of Canada and there were these two women that were from the Wetsuiton pipeline. And, you know, just hearing about their stories, it was really impactful to listen to those women. It was also a reminder of, you know, the resistance we've constantly done as Indigenous peoples and how we have to stay true to that. And there's so many different ways that we can do that. And for those women, they were, they were, they're living in a war zone, to be quite honest. Like it, what they're facing the front lines is, is so intense and I'm glad they got the opportunity to just step away from that for a few days because they're constantly on the front lines experiencing what it's like to live in these war zones of extractive industries that are in your community, in your backyard. And it's really scary about the power of the amount of power that they hold within our country. And when we move away from, you know, these extractive industries, we also also need to consider what we're moving towards and whether the, where these extractive industries are moving their investments, because we are seeing, you know, that some of these industries are now moving their investments to electric cars. And so we really need to consider, you know, who we're, who we're giving our money to, who we're giving our resources to. And just, again, as individuals be really aware, be informed, being educated, because we do need to move forward with things like these treaties, it's just one way that we can come together and do better for our nations. Yeah, I hope that there's little bits in there that that help and that support and I, and again, I think, as individuals as communities, we all have the power to see the change that we want. And so we just really need to, you know, be informed and educate ourselves and be aligned with our values. Thank you so much to you. I really appreciate you sharing so openly about impacts in your community and for bringing in that story of the land offenders from what so it's and they certainly deserve retreat from time to time. Thank you so much for sharing that and I think you touched on a really good point towards the end. Just that, you know, you have all these considerations or things that that we should be considering in in the development of a treaty and in our endorsement of the treaty and that's what we're hoping tonight can be is just having that open dialogue about it. And knowing, you know, Kairos thinks that it's a good idea and we have endorsed, but we're here to open the conversation across Canada to to kind of work those things out so I really appreciate you bringing that point up. Are there any questions for Tia before we we hear from Matt, I'll just maybe take a few. I'll actually she has a great question in what ways and maybe Tia you want to just answer this but I have a feeling your question Carla would be really great within the discussions to the small group discussion but in what ways could we hold governments and industries accountable. I'm assuming this is in connection if if they were in kind of contravention to the treaty or maybe it's right now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily have any ideas at the top of my head I think it needs a lot of thought that is considered, but for myself I would think you know, because essentially these companies, you know money is not a fine isn't going to cut it for them. Like they can pay their way out of any fine that you imagine. And so I think accountability needs to go a step further and really consider, you know jail time for desecrating Mother Earth, as we would assume that if someone's being assaulted a person that they would get you know jail time for assaulting a person. And so I think when we are negotiating these treaties and consider like accountability, whether it's jail time, you know that's that's one way. Whether it's, you know, they're not so much pain of fine to government who is oftentimes then investing continued investing into industry that they have to those fines are going to environmental networks or, you know land defenders. Instead. Those are just some ideas, I guess. Yeah, yeah, and maybe folks. Yeah. Yeah. Carla has added boycott to the chat so that's, yeah, that's certainly something and as you said, you did kind of mention that a little bit of something that we can do collectively. Thank you so much again, and we'll keep the conversation going in the small groups but I'm going to pass things over to Matt so we can hear from him but before that that moment. The third speaker tonight is Matthew van Abema, and Matthew is a third year student at Carleton University and the faculty of human rights. He has previously attended the Dominican University College where he earned a bachelor of theology and philosophy. He has long cared about the environment and is just starting his journey into climate activism and his fight for human rights. I would also like to remember of Fridays for Future Ottawa, and a part of the organizing team, making preparations for the global climate strike on Friday and he just informed me that he's also emceeing at the strike so if you're in in Ottawa and planning to be there you will see him in person. And thank you so much for being with us Matt and I'll pass it over to you. Thank you for the introduction. Also I would like to apologize. First off that I've been kind of losing my voice this week from doing so much speaking. So if you can hear me or pardon me a second. If you can hear me, I can't really talk any louder than this so if you could put your volume up that'd be greatly appreciated. And secondly, I would like to thank the previous two speakers, and I hope I pay respect by speaking just as well if I can. What I wanted to talk to you tonight about also forgive me if you hear a cat crying in the background, it's dinner time and he's angry, but I'll get to him afterward. What I wanted to talk to you tonight about was there's a, I feel like there's a rift, a distance between youth and older generations that hope to be a sort of ambassador to help cross or at least give some planks of wood in that bridge. Because when it comes, there's this thing that's been upsetting me when it comes to older generations in my organization because we're an intergenerational organization. The older generations are always rallying about how, why aren't the youth more angry? Why aren't they more invested? Why aren't they more up in arms out in the streets? And the issue isn't that the youth are angry. You know, I'm speaking from an anecdotal general perspective, of course. But from my experience and from my perspective, like, sorry cat. From my experience perspective is not the youth aren't angry. It's not that we're not frustrated. It's not that we're upset. It's just, it all feels so overwhelming. And we all feel so alone in our struggle against climate change and in our climate activism. If I may, I'll share a story. I was speaking to my friend Sebastian. We were having coffee and we got to talking about this, about me emceeing and organizing and rallying and being out there for the climate. And I asked him, well, why aren't you a part of it? Because I'm a very blunt person, a very honest person. I don't like beating around the bush. And he told me is that, well, it's not that I don't care. It's not that it doesn't affect me. It's not that I'm not upset by it. It's a fact that it just, it doesn't, there doesn't seem to be a point. There doesn't seem to be any point in trying in going and doing. So if the people before me, you know, the older generations didn't do anything about it. And the people around me, you know, my generation aren't doing anything about it. Why should I? And his perspective was, yes, everything is going, you know, forget the language, everything's going to hell in a handbasket. But if I don't, no one's doing anything, I'll just do whatever else is doing, which is enjoying my life. So he golfs and he goes to the movies and he just tries to distract himself as best he can from this climate fear from this climate terror and anxiety. And that's another thing I want to talk about tonight where these two things, you know, in my generation, it seems to be climate change seems to be destroying my generation. Not only, you know, physically, you know, pollutants and toxins and cancer rates and all that sort of nonsense and absurdity that shouldn't be. I'm also mentally, spiritually, psychologically is we are so devastated and dismayed and diminished and just feels like climate change is devouring every part of who we are. That we, we don't know what to do. We don't know where to go. And though we care. It's not, it's, it's the frustration is paralyzing the fear is paralyzing the terror is paralyzing. And it's not that I understand that older generations also care it's not that at all. I'm just as a youth I'm just trying to speak for the youth. That's all I'm trying to do, not judging anyone. But the two things I want to talk about tonight were hope and care, because we don't see a lot of idea of care in the climate change movement. And again, for my the older generations I interact, I interact with not anyone else here personally, but they talk about anger and frustration and rallying and that's not who I am and that's not a lot of how a lot of you see it. We want to care, not only about the environment but each other we want to care, not only about affecting change, but belonging to a community belonging to a group of people belonging to each other. When it comes to fossil fuels, there's a great point in the proliferation treaty about a just transition, and that just transition does not, you know, mean a move away only from fossil fuels, but also just transition for the workers for their families for their livelihoods into renewable and into the renewable energy sector into a less polluted earth, because humanity shouldn't shouldn't be at the fringes of the climate movement. It should be earth and humanity because we are as much a part of this planet as much as this, you know, biosphere, as everything else is. And just because we're the ones that's messing everything up does not mean we are excluded from enjoying the benefit of a greener safer earth. We should all enjoy that. You have hope after speaking about so much dismay. I know it was a bit paradoxical and ironic. But if I may, you know, indulge a little bit in my old philosophy background. Thomas Aquinas, who was a, if you ever read Thomas Aquinas, I don't recommend by the way please don't ever read Thomas Aquinas. I'm sorry there are Catholics here I've read them thoroughly and I never enjoyed him, but it was a recommendation it was a requirement sorry. It was, by all accounts, a very, you know, reserved, conservative, you know, personality wise, not politics wise, almost sour, cynical, dour man. And even he, when he talked about hope even this this cynical man, when he talked about hope he has this gem in his writings, that hope not only is, is, you know, dignity personified but is also dignifying that when we hope we all not only ourselves, but when we hope we dignify each other. And that idea of relation, again, is so important to the climate movement. It's important to not to realize that we're not alone to realize that we all do care and we all want to hope. But we haven't made those threads we haven't made those connections we haven't built those communities. When we see each other, you know, young, old, and we separate ourselves and we don't have a distance to cross. So my speaking here tonight. I want to propose a question to you I'm sure if you have questions for me I will take them. But I want to propose a question to you is how are you connecting to other people with your climate fears and climate terrors, because not just about anger. It's not just about frustration is not just about, you know, hate against the fossil fuel companies which is a valid feeling I'm not trying to diminish or dismay anyone, you know, hate and anger and frustration those are all very valid feelings. I just also wanted to promote without diminishing the other feelings, promote the ideas of hope and care because we don't see that a lot in the client activist movement, and also promote the idea that we need to care about each other as much as we care about the world. And we need to hope together as much as we also have personal hopes. And we also need to start seeing each other less as those those people over there, that thing over there because this is all interconnected. You know, pollution doesn't care if it was it was produced on the other side of the globe or here. And it affects us all so deeply and so intimately, that in order to fix everything we need to start creating connection and creating relation and coming together. And we can only do that with yes in our shared anger yes in our shared sadness yes in our shared terror. But I believe is you can also add to the roster hope and care, because those are such deeply human feelings and sentiments and emotions. Thank you so much for those powerful words. I think you will find that many in this room are comfortable with the paradox between hope and despair. So I think you're in good company in that way. And thank you for your your question to the group at the end. I don't know if anyone wants to to share anything or ask a question of Matt. We'll just give a moment to the room to see if there's questions. Just as I have Matt pin just signal that you'd like to speak or. Yeah, use the raise hand function. Yeah, there's a nice comment here in the chat from Agnes Matthew to answer your question I to and building bridges and asking Canadian Catholics in a ritual national gathering on September 27 to endorse the foster fuel non proliferation treaty. And Agnes is with the lead out to see movement in Canada so there is some bridge building. Thanks for sharing that Agnes. Okay, if there if there is no immediate questions of Matt and again, Matt and Tia are here for the rest of the program until 830. Claudia is just about to to head out so thank you so much Claudia again for your presence. But we wanted to go into Cheryl has a question. Go ahead Cheryl. Yes, hi and can you hear me okay. Yes. Okay, thank you Matthew for for your feedback on that. I mean, I know myself, and I know so many here on the call as well have been working on the climate crisis for many years, decades even. I know, almost 10 years ago I was in New York City where 400,000 people took to the streets and that was in the city alone. And millions of people worldwide took place to part as well. There are so many organizations that have been growing and building, you know, there's Kairos there's 350.org there's the citizens climate lobby there's so many organizations that are out there, working with volunteers. And I'm just wondering, you know, how can we capture the people. People are becoming very concerned right now right they're waking up which is great, but they feel very alone. How do you reach out and connect to these people and let them know that you're not alone actually, there are so many organizations out there that are doing stuff even even if it's whatever speaks to you. So I'm just wondering because there seems to be the sense of you know we're all in our little silos, and that's actually not true. There's just been so much work that has been done for so many years. And I'm just wondering how do we connect people who are finding themselves in, in, in great fear around this issue feel paralyzed. And how do we engage with those people so that because we always believe and we've been saying this for decades that action is the antidote to despair. And I'm just wondering how can we connect people and let them know there's just so much out there that they can that that this has been going on for years. Thank you for a question. I also hope I didn't offend anyone I didn't mean to say that nothing's been done. I hope that's never that didn't come across that way. Speaking of fear I think that is how you connect to someone is through the fear we have this tendency in this in our society to not speak of fear that make it hush to make it go away. It's such a powerful emotion such an again intimate intimate emotion. Why should we not connect with it. Why shouldn't we say I'm afraid just like you are afraid or at least I'm afraid for different reasons and you're afraid for these reasons. Why should we connect with you know connect by that way. There's also the idea of what we shouldn't connect in each other sadness which is wrong. There you know the reason why we cry what we know physically cry is to show other people and get their empathy and get their sympathy and we connect in that way. We shouldn't diminish happiness we shouldn't diminish joy but again it just make this space for these you know negative emotions they're not negative they're real they're actual they're there. And if we try pushing them aside or pushing them away we do know in any favor especially ourselves. And if you want to connect to people you have to connect with them where they are and what they're feeling. And if that's sadness and if that's anger and if that's frustration and if that's you know even hate for something connect to them on some level don't be hateful I don't think you should be hateful you know. That's a whole different conversation but if you are sad if you are afraid if you feel terror if you feel anxiety or guilt connect them those feelings share those feelings build communities on those bonds. That's you know my answer my very limited experience. Thanks that and thank you Cheryl for that question. I think it really does kind of crack open a new way of, of, of building the movement right this is this is where we are at is meeting people where they are. And sometimes we find ourselves in rooms and spaces where maybe everyone's kind of feeling that they've already reached the point of taking action and that there's still so many that are having these feelings and we want to be present with them too so thank you both for for sharing that. We're going to, we're going to go into small groups now, just for maybe about 10 minutes and and have just some conversation. Feel free to raise your own questions I know some have already been raised in the chat. But I will pop a few into the chat here as well for you to take notes. And what I am hoping in the small group discussion is that you can just either answer questions to the group to see. Maybe it's about the treaty about the process of the treaty, or just about building momentum how you know across Canada we can build this momentum, calling for fossil fuel phase out, whether that's through endorsement of the treaty or other policies. I'm just looking for folks to strategize and chat. I have a few questions that I'll just say aloud and then share them in the chat, but you know what would a fair phase out of fossil fuels look like in your community or region. Your municipality endorse the treaty if not, you know what opportunities and challenges might you face in presenting emotion to seek endorsement so wherever you are in Canada like what would be the challenge there. And what unique challenges maybe face endorsement of the treaty in Canada and how might churches and people of faith as those kind of gathered here in this space, help to build momentum in support of endorsement or in support of just other fossil phase out legislation. So, I will share those in the chat and then just take a moment to open the rooms and yeah if you if you need to leave that's fine and if our rooms get a little too small we can we can gather back into a bigger room, but I'll just share those questions now. And I'm just pulling them. And again I've seen some really great questions posed in the chat so please feel free to choose your own adventure in that in there. There we go. Right so I'll open up the rooms now and we'll come back together in about 10 minutes. Welcome back everyone. Thank you so much for sticking with us and for for for joining others in conversation in those groups. I just shared a little bit about what she was chatting about in her group I wonder if anyone else wanted to share insights about about their conversations. I was raising the question as to whether there are examples to hand off for resolutions that have been put before municipalities or state legislative bodies. I'm looking for endorsement of this initiative. I'm aware that we're not we're talking about a bringing a treaty into being rather than signing on to a full treaty with all its comprehensive kind of aspects. I'm just wondering whether there are examples of those kinds of resolutions I very much like to see it. I think it's a different matter, asking people to sign on to the development of a treaty, rather than asking them to sign on to a treaty itself. Thank you Mervin a great it is an important distinction in this effort and I will be sharing some resources from the treaty initiative to that to that end. So they have a whole kind of guide for meeting with your representative, but I can also share out maybe some specific motions example motions I know I do have one from the Anglican Consultative Council. Maybe you can share out some others. So thank you for that. Any other, other questions or points to the group. Oh, sorry, I couldn't I couldn't see it I think it was flushed in your background. I better say something if I had my head on. In my small group of course we didn't have enough time and that's always the way it goes I guess but I guess so one of my concerns is that we should recognize that the whole effort about energy and how it's produced it really revolves around money. And if the money is to be made out of oil and and and such sources. Of course, people are going to pursue it and companies are going to pursue it. So I think that we should try to emphasize more strongly that governments give incentive to green energy projects so that they very quickly become more economical than the fossil fuel energies and then people would switch over because simply the human greed for profit and the and making money is always going to rule generally in society. And I guess I've been very concerned about what's been happening in Alberta that the government has called for a set was it a seven month halt on encouragement for green energy. It's just plain ridiculous, because apparently there's been some very successful green energy projects. And I have a feeling the government is really trying to save the oil and gas industry a little bit because green energy is growing. And how our politicians about that sort of thing and encourage the development very quickly of green energy. And it's certainly possible. Information from the group here. I think in our group as well money really speaks and so yeah thank you for that I think we can we can champion things the cost of renewables is already more affordable so we just have to transfer that that affordability to to consumers. So, thank you for bringing that up. Okay, we are almost at the end of our time together so I just wanted to share a few resources and and announcements with you I just put in the chat the link to endorse the treaty initiative. The treaty itself, it's just the initiative to build a treaty in the chat so please do that if you haven't already done so and please share that around with friends and family and colleagues. I'm just going to pull wack links just now in the chat and I hope they are somewhat distinguishable. These are just some of the campaign materials available from the treaty network to help you in your own efforts to seek support or seek endorsement of the treaty please go on to that page though and explore there's other things there but I just pulled out a few that I thought were helpful. And then to Mervyn's point, I will try to find some of these, some of the motions, perhaps. And again, we can share those out maybe with with the follow up email but thank you for raising that. There should be there should be resources in French. One of the two other announcements just to make is that, as you know this is we are right in the middle of Climate Action Week, and it continues tomorrow with more content on the Kairos website and the Kairos blog so look for that will be doing kind of an overview of the global climate strike and campaign fossil fuels. Tomorrow on the blog with just kind of unpacking the demands from this year's climate strike. So look for that. And there will also be some resources there to support the strike virtually so if you're not able to participate in an action on Friday or Saturday or Sunday. I'll report it in other ways. Thursday we're hosting another event at noon Eastern about the fossil fuel and proliferation treaty and this will be more of a workshop discussion with the Reverend Cannon Rachel mash from Green Anglicans. Where she will share some of her insights of bringing forward a successful motion to the Anglican Consultative Council earlier this year. I'm going to put that the registration for that in the chat now. And as you know, there's more links on the Climate Action Week webpage about the strikes and other things happening this weekend so please do take a look at those. This year. For the love of creation Kairos is supporting for the love of creation, a campaign that they're doing to a youth group has a youth advisory team has called on all people of faith to fold up commitments and send it to decision makers through the climate strike so they're asking folks to write a letter to decision makers and to fold it into kind of an origami of an endangered animal. So this is a call from some youth in the for the love of creation network. So if that speaks to you and you want to use your creativity. Please look at this link that I will just share in the chat now for more information about that and we encourage you all to participate and show that around and get folding. And I think I will just end it there I just want to say thanks again to our speakers and to all of you for gathering here today. Thank you for being with us for this conversation. And if you have any ideas to keep the conversation going in your community or cross Canada, there's ways for Kairos to support that. Please do reach out to me. And we will keep that going. So thank you so much for coming today.