UPDATE: Climate Groups Scramble to Respond to Federal Climate Plan Deadline

Canadian climate groups started the year in a scramble to meet a January 14 deadline for public comment on the country’s 2030 carbon reduction plan.

The mandatory plan under the new Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act was due to be released in late December. The legislation allowed for a three-month extension, and Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault announced last month that he was taking it.

With much of the one-month consultation period colliding with the December holiday, Leadnow had generated 5,250 responses to the consultation as of Sunday morning. A newly-formed group, Climate Messengers, is offering a menu of options for potential participants—including sample answers to a government survey, and a toolkit to guide more detailed responses—and groups like For Our Kids, Below2°C, 350 Ottawa, ClimateFast, and others have been amplifying their call.

“This is a moment of opportunity, because the Minister must consult us before he establishes the plan,” Climate Messengers states. That’s why it’s “very important that regular Canadian citizens who are concerned about climate change participate in these consultations. By adding your voice, you help to press the government to act with sufficient speed and sufficient strength.”

The group cites the government’s recent consultations on its new Net Zero Advisory Body as a moment when oil and gas interests weren’t shy about trying slow down the government’s climate response.

“The fossil fuel lobby has large and well-organized groups of individuals who oppose climate change action,” Climate Messengers writes. “Some register their denial that man-made climate change is real. Others say we must go slow, while making as much profit from Canada’s fossil fuels as possible. Together, they act as a powerful force on the government to move too slowly on plans that are too watered down to make the big GHG reductions that matter.”

The Climate Messengers toolkit includes a direct link to the federal survey, a set of sample answers, a backgrounder on the consultation process, details on each of the main subject areas in the survey, and a step-by-step walk-through.

The toolkit only began rolling out this week, but Below 2°C publisher and Climate Messengers member Rolly Montpellier said it’s generating a quick response. “There’s a real appetite for this kind of tool, and we’re providing it,” he said. “This is a very important consultation, and there’s a real feeling that people want to respond to it.”

While Ottawa currently has a half-dozen climate consultations in progress—at least five of them concluding this month—Climate Messengers sees the January 14 deadline as the most important one, since it feeds into Guilbeault’s March 29 report on how the government will meet its 2030 emissions reduction target.