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Double your power to help Ontario be a climate leader

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In Development
Jul 5th, 2021
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A word from donors Paul McKay and Mike Brigham

By Angela Bischoff, Director and Jack Gibbons, Chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance

“As safe energy advocates and green power project builders, we have long admired and supported the stellar campaigns of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA) to shut down Ontario’s coal and nuclear plants, promote energy efficiency, and accelerate the age of renewables. Combining precise facts and principled activism, the OCAA team has won major victories. But there are still battles ahead, so we hope you will help match our donations now.”

It’s simple. If we want to meet Ontario’s targets for reducing climate changing emissions, we have to phase-out gas-fired electricity generation by 2030. We cannot turn back close to 40% of the climate gains we made by getting rid of dirty coal by ramping up the use of our polluting gas plants.

But that’s where the Ford government is headed right now – increasing gas plant use by 300 – 500% at the exact moment we need to be doing everything we can to reduce our climate impact.

Because the Ontario government is so deeply invested in holding onto aging nuclear infrastructure and dead set against renewable energy and efficiency, Ontario is going to be transformed from a climate leader to a climate pariah.

Fortunately, thanks to your support, our campaign to phase out gas has picked up incredible momentum. Thirty municipalities (representing more than half the population of Ontario) have endorsed our call to end the use of fossil fuels in the electricity sector, and thousands of you have sent letters and signed petitions calling on your MPPs to act on this issue.

Our combined actions have convinced the province’s power planning authority, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), to seriously consider what it would take to phase out gas by 2030Incredible! But the IESO has been clear that it will only pursue plans to phase-out gas if the government tells it to do so.

So we need to keep the pressure on, and to do that we need your financial support. The great news is that if you make a donation to support our campaign right now, we have two generous friends (Paul McKay and Mike Brigham pictured above) who will match your donations up to a maximum of $20,000.

You know the OCAA can make a lot of noise and create a lot of pressure for $40,000! We succeeded in taking down coal by convincing our political leaders that it was both the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. All four major parties in Ontario eventually endorsed the need to get rid of dirty coal. Now we have to do the same for gas.

Corporations like Enbridge Gas and Ontario Power Generation (which owns five of our largest gas plants) will tell you we can’t live without gas-fired power, just as vested interests said we couldn’t live without coal. But when Dalton McGuinty was elected Premier of Ontario in 2003 on a promise to phase-out coal, coal was responsible for 25% of our electricity supply. Today, gas supplies just 6% of our power. We can chalk up another victory for our climate – with your help.

Please make a double-power donation today and help us take the next big step toward a 100% renewable energy future. Thank you!

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