With 20 days to go to the G8 and G20 summits in Toronto, here are 20 reasons
that the climate movement needs to get mobilized. Every day you can
become increasingly motivated to get organize, get mobilized, and know just
why we need to have our voices heard.

1. The G8 and G20 are a self-selected, unaccountable group of nations
that has deemed themselves legitimate for making decisions that impact all
people. The Group of 192 (aka the United Nations) is unquestionably a more
appropriate forum to discuss global issues.

2. Both G8 and G20 summits refuse to talk about the Alberta tar sands,
the single largest environmental and social injustice on Turtle Island.

3. Only 2 of the G20 countries (Mexico and Argentina) are on track to
meeting their Kyoto agreements.

4. Rich countries will not be talking about paying their climate debt at
the summits.

5. Neither the G8 nor the G20 will be discussing climate financing.

6. G20 countries have given over 200 billion dollars in subsidies to the
oil and coal industry, but have allocated no money directly to an
environmental strategy.

7. Security costs for the summits are estimated to be over $1 billion
dollars. This is $1 billion dollars more than Canada has committed to
climate financing.

8. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon urged Stephen Harper to talk
seriously about climate change at the G20 meetings, but he refused. “I’m
going to discuss with Prime Minister Harper, as the leader of the G8, and as
a chair of the G20 this year, and as one of the most developed countries in
the world. Canada has a special role and special responsibility to play.
That is what I want to emphasize.” Harper would not accept his
responsibility.

9. Canada, where the G8 and G20 will meet, houses over 60% of the world’s
mining companies. Mining displaces people and strips away forests, causing
warming of the earth’s surface, water evaporation, and desertification.

10. Neither Canada nor the United States–powerful and influential
players in the G20–have signed onto the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, which is imperative in achieving climate and
environmental justice.

11. Some G20 countries are exploiting other G20 countries. For example,
due to climate change, agricultural land in Mexico is being destroyed.
Canada recruits these out-of-work farmers and employs them as temporary
workers in dangerous jobs in Canada. They work in the tar sands and in our
agricultural sector with poor wages and little access, if any, to social
services. Climate change is, and will continue, displacing entire
communities due to land degradation, poor air quality, drought, or rising
sea levels.

12. This convergence is an opportunity for young people to speak with
organizers and dedicated individuals from other movements. That way we can
really see how the road to climate and environmental justice involves the
rights and dignity of all people.

13. Rich countries at these summits are promoting carbon markets, which
historically have not worked. The G20 promotes these policies as a way to
reinforce the free market system, a system which has caused social and
environmental hardships. The G20  excludes civil society  from discussions
and decision making processes. We cannot allow decisions to be made about
us, without us.

14. The main goal of the summits is to bolster the global financial
system and put the economy “on track for sustainable growth.” Yet its
priorities continue to be the priorities of the wealthiest people in the
wealthiest countries, not the needs of those being hit first and worst.

15. The Summits’ security budget could pay for an estimated 250+ 2MW wind
turbines, enough to power 500,000 homes.

16. G20 countries are responsible for 70-80% of all greenhouse gas
emissions.

17. The G8 encourages countries to drill oil in new places, and gives
them money to help them do this.  In Canada, the government wants to drill
for oil in the Artic, even though it will destroy untouched wilderness and
is against the interests of the Inuit people living there.

18. The G8 encourages countries to drill oil in new places, and gives
them money to help them do this.  In Canada, the government wants to drill
for oil in the Artic, even though it will destroy untouched wilderness and
is against the interests of the Inuit people living there.

19. G8 / G20 countries refuse to meet with the rest of the world and
agree on a plan to battle climate change.  Instead, they make their own
rules at their own meetings that do not force them to make any real changes
to their environmental rules.
20. And because the real solutions are out there and they are rooted in a
sense of harmony and solidarity with each other and the planet, and in the
rights of living with clean air, water, and land.