Carbon Pricing in Paris, Admiral Titley, Gibson Co-sponsor, 2016 Conference, Giving Tuesday!, Canada, and more.

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  Citizens' Climate Lobby  
 
   CCL Newsletter December, 2015
   
 
   

 

CCL Team in Paris
Table of Contents:
CCL takes carbon-pricing message to Paris talks
Carbon-Pricing letter sent to COP21 delegates
December action: Letters to the editor on Paris talks
November Lobby Day
Another Gibson co-sponsor
December call guest: Retired Navy Rear Admiral David Titley
Save the Dates for 2016 Conference and Lobby Day!
Regional conferences
CCL donors come through big on Giving Tuesday!
CCL Canada update
CCL Chapters now have a page online
CCL takes carbon-pricing message to Paris talks

With the COP21 meeting in Paris now in high gear, about 30 CCL volunteers, led by Global Strategy Director Joe Robertson, are pressing the case to include carbon pricing in the climate accord to be finalized next week.

"For me, arrival in Paris has been the culmination of a collective effort, over more than 14 months, to build a new kind of citizen engagement strategy," said Robertson in our first blog post from Paris. "We are fortunate to have so many intrepid and committed souls, willing to travel here at their own expense in this difficult moment, with all of the pressures telling them not to, so that we can channel their energies into making the Paris process that much smarter, stronger, and more inventive."

CCL volunteers Peter Joseph and Lee Balance on the streets of Paris.

One of the first successes of the Paris talks was the launch of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, which includes governments, intergovernmental agencies, businesses and nonprofits, who all agree the world needs to be pricing carbon fairly, effectively and efficiently, as soon as possible.

As Robertson reported in the Citizens' Climate Network blog, “As the Paris agreement will come into full legal force in 2020, the goal is to add carbon pricing to all national strategies by that time, to ensure the most cost-effective way to implement a true global response to climate disruption.”

Our team in Paris will be posting daily reports on CCL's blog. Subscribe to keep up with the latest news! You can also check out their great video reports on Citizens' Voice TV.

 
Carbon-Pricing letter sent to COP21 delegates
 
Just before the start of the Paris talks, a group of 32 notable individuals, including four Nobel Laureates and three former cabinet secretaries, sent a letter urging Paris climate negotiators to focus on national carbon taxes, both for their intrinsic value and as a gateway to a global carbon price.

CCL Executive Director Mark Reynolds is one of the letter’s signers. Also signing the letter was CCL Advisory Board member and former Secretary of State George Shultz. The letter was initiated by the Carbon Tax Center, a long-time ally of CCL. You can read the text of the letter and see who signed it here.
December action: Letters to the editor on Paris talks
 
Obama in Paris
With the Paris climate conference continuing through Dec. 11, stories and commentary in newspapers are easy to come by, offering excellent opportunities to publish letters to the editor, which you can then send to your members of Congress. At a time when many members of Congress are trying to undermine a global climate agreement, it is important for us to get the message out that failure in Paris is not an option and that the best solution going forward is to put a price on carbon. For your convenience, we now have an online tool to help you submit letters to the editor in your area. This LTE action includes talking points to help you draft and submit your letter. You’ll find it here.

Our other action this month is letters to members Congress about the Paris talks. We also have an online tool for composing and sending those letters here.
November Lobby Day
 
CCL was back on the Hill in November with 140 volunteers participating in a day of training before holding 172 meetings with House and Senate offices. At our first November Lobby Day held last year, 60 volunteers attended. There were several purposes for the meetings this year, held mostly with congressional offices of members who are on key committees such as House Ways and Means and Senate Finance:
  • Brief offices on the meetings that were held in June, which provided a sense of the level of engagement on the Hill with our Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal.
  • Give offices an update on the media CCL volunteers have generated over the past four months highlighting media that was generated around the climate resolution introduced by Rep. Chris Gibson and 10 other Republicans.
  • Ask Republicans in the House to co-sponsor the Gibson resolution.
  • Ask Republicans in the Senate to join the Energy and Environment Working Group.
A preliminary review of meeting notes indicates that we may be picking up some Republican cosponsors on the Gibson resolution in the weeks ahead. Read more about the November Lobby Day in this blog post.

Coming up, CCL will organize a Spring In-District Lobby Week with special online training. Details to come.
Another Gibson co-sponsor
 
Rep. Tom Reed
Rep. Tom Reed
Last month, we picked up another sponsor for the Republican climate resolution (H.Res 424) when Republican Rep. Tom Reed (NY-23) signed on. It came about through the persistent and patient work of CCL’s Ithaca chapter, led by Miranda Phillips. Over the past year and a half, her group met eight times with Reed’s office, including three town hall meetings. They’ve also published nine op-eds, including one that ran in USA Today. Miranda relates the big breakthrough that came during the June lobbying in Washington:

"We also diversified our group to include conservative, rural voices. We had been unsure how to do this, and then -- lucky us -- the June Lobby Day Faith Leaders project brought us someone: Brian Webb, an evangelical sustainability coordinator (go figure!), and fellow constituent. He was a key part of our success in D.C. As soon as our Rep. heard that Brian was from the most conservative part of our district, he visibly relaxed and oriented himself to Brian. Since that June meeting, Brian's been in regular conversation with my chapter in Ithaca, and (in conscious collaboration with our own efforts) spreading CF&D and Gibson news in the most conservative parts of our district while we’ve been reaching the most liberal folks here in Ithaca.” It all comes down building relationships.
December call guest: Retired Navy Rear Admiral David Titley
 
Admiral David Titley
 
Our guest for the December call is Dr. David Titley, a professor of practice in meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and the founding director of their Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. He was also NOAA’s chief operating officer from 2012-2013. Before assuming these positions, he was a rear admiral and the chief oceanographer of the U.S. Navy, in which he served for 32 years. While serving in the Pentagon, Dr. Titley initiated and led the U.S. Navy’s Task Force on Climate Change.
A packed room listens to keynote speaker Katharine Hayhoe at CCL’s 2015 conference.
Save the Dates for 2016 Conference and Lobby Day!
 
Mark your calendars for June 19 - 21, 2016, for CCE/CCL's International Conference and Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. New this year, we will kick off the event on Sunday morning instead of Sunday evening like years past. We'll have exciting speakers, sessions, and opportunities for networking throughout the day on Sunday that you won't want to miss. Look for registration to open on our website the first week of January. We will have many more details on the agenda then but, for now, pencil these dates onto your calendar as the must attend 2016 event!
Climate scientist Dr. James Hansen speaks at the Northeast Regional Conference.
Regional conferences
 
2016 regional conferences will kick off with two conferences in the southern U.S. in January. No worries about snow for those folks! The first one will be January 23-24 in Los Angeles and will feature the mayor of Lancaster, California, as the keynote speaker. The many breakouts will offer a chance for everyone to move their knowledge and skills to the next level. The action then moves to Austin, Texas, the following weekend (Jan. 30-31) where we anticipate lots of sizzling energy following the October Texas Energy Freedom Tour. Admiral David Titley will be the keynote speaker.

You can get all the details about these and other upcoming regional conferences on our website.

The CCL Northeast Regional Conference (entitled "Make Climate Change THE Issue in 2016") was held in Nashua November 13-15. Volunteer Mike Fleming offers his recap:

"For me personally, and I think for all of the participants, the CCL Northeast Regional Teach-In and Conference was a resounding success. We had opportunities to hear the famous Dr. James Hansen, ponder the details of CF&D economics, learn about Northeast regional climate impacts, and even sing catchy new climate anthems. We also gained nuts and bolts knowledge that will help us in our efforts to promote CCL's proposal – techniques for bird-dogging candidates, engaging in difficult conversations, and writing effective letters. Perhaps most important, we had the pleasure of meeting and talking with other CCLers, connections that promise to be important personally and for CCL as we go forward."
CCL donors come through big on Giving Tuesday!

We did it!  On Giving Tuesday, our wonderful volunteers and supporters stepped up once again to ensure that we can keep on building support for climate action in the year to come. We blew past our $80,000 matching grant goal on the way to a total of  $181,628 on Giving Tuesday alone. Along with the matching grants, this made for a one-day total of $261,628, which is BIG news for a lean, mean operation like ours. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed and helped to spread the word!

If you weren’t able to donate during the match period, don’t worry. Our campaign will continue through the end of the year. We’ve seen a lot of big developments recently, from the call from 12 House Republicans to study bipartisan climate solutions to Senator Ayotte’s formation of an Energy and Environment Working Group with several GOP colleagues. Please take a moment and help to make 2016 the biggest year for climate action yet!

And, with the year-end holidays fast approaching, why not ask friends and families to donate to Citizens’ Climate Education in lieu of a physical gift? They’ll be helping to protect the planet, supporting a cause you care about, and helping you and your fellow volunteers to build support for climate action.  

Thank you all so much again!
CCL Canada update
 
 CCL Halifax members, Joanne Light and Andy Blair met with MP Bill Casey (left).
From CCL Canada National Manager Cathy Orlando:

There is so much happening in Canada lately that it is hard to pick one thing to focus on. Here is a list of the first four things that came to mind:
  • CCL Halifax is touring the province of Nova Scotia and lobbying every federal Parliamentarian in Nova Scotia for Carbon Fee and Dividend. Read about it here. Along the way, they recruited a new CCL chapter in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, with the help of Mari at CCL Ottawa. Welcome Jefry and the gang to CCL Canada.
  • CCL British Columbia members are collaborating in a provincially focused effort to “hike the BC carbon tax.” Their first action was to send to all Canadian Premiers*, the Prime Minister and other key politicians our cartoon that explains carbon fee and dividend. Read about it here.
  • Several volunteers got their first op-eds published this past month. Way to go Mary Blake (CCL London, PhD student), Frédérique (CCL Montreal, law student) and  Neil (CCL Brampton).
  • Perhaps one of the politest acts of civil disobedience that ever occurred happened November 5-8, 2015, when hundreds of people tried to get arrested in front of our new Prime Minister’s residence and did not get arrested. You can read about it here.
Chapter page for our Flagstaff, Arizona chapter.
CCL Chapters now have a page online
 
CCL has expanded its website to include a web page for each of our local chapters. Chapter leaders can customize their web page for their own local efforts. Chapters from New York to Arizona and from Australia to Portugal have customized their pages with an image, meeting times and links to their Twitter and Facebook pages. Talk to your chapter leader to find out how your chapter can update your page.

Now you can link directly to your chapter's page on the CCL website, and people can more easily join your chapter from that page. See our list of CCL Chapters to find your chapter and to explore our worldwide network.
CCL New Member Orientation
Do you want to be a more effective volunteer? Start by joining our weekly intro call and then register for our new member orientation.
The Intro Call is held weekly on Wednesdays at 8pm ET, 5pm PT
Join Intro Call
New Member Orientation is held third and fourth Wednesdays of every month. Request for Information
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