Recent News
The 2022 Livable Cities Forum was a success
The 2022 Livable Cities Forum was held in Victoria last week, October 3-5, 2022. The event brought together leaders, climate experts, and local practitioners from across Canada to explore how integrating equity, inclusion, and diversity into climate actions leads to more resilient and livable communities. Recordings of the Day 1 and Day 2 plenary sessions, as well as PDFs of speaker presentations, will be available online by Tuesday, October 25, 2022.
COP27 takes place November 7-18, 2022
The next Climate COP will be in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt from 7 – 18 November, 2022. Billed as the “Implementation COP”, this UNFCCC event will build on successes from COP26, where there was recognition of “multilevel collaboration” in the Glasgow Climate Pact, meaning nations committed to include local and regional governments in all elements and steps of the Paris Agreement. As the voice of cities and regions in the UNFCCC Climate Process, ICLEI hosts the Local Governments and Municipal Authorities (LGMA) Constituency. Read more about the four-point advocacy agenda at COP 27 and join the monthly preparatory and debrief webinars.
Local Governments are invited to COP15 in Montreal
The UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) will be held in Montreal December 7-19, 2022 and, for the first time, there will be a dedicated Pavilion focusing entirely on subnational and local government actions and opportunities. ICLEI, together with its partners, is pleased to invite subnational and local governments to the 7th Summit for Subnational Governments and Cities and its associated Pavilion. This parallel event is unprecedented and will welcome significantly strengthened contributions from subnational governments and cities to the new post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
Project Updates
Agents of Change
The Agents of Change participants are now nearing completion of the program design phase and getting ready for the program implementation phase. Stay tuned for more updates.
Advancing Adaptation
Participating municipalities within the Risk and Vulnerability, Planning, and Implementation cohorts are working towards completing their milestone achievements using the Building Adaptation and Resilient Communities (BARC) process by December 2022. Stay tuned for case studies and lessons learned.
New Resources Available
Equity Resource Guide
ICLEI Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have developed the Integrating equity, diversity and inclusion into municipal climate action resource. This introductory resource was created to help municipalities take the first step on their equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) journey. The resource demystifies key concepts, shares case studies and lessons learned, and provides a basic framework for making EDI a core part of your municipality’s everyday climate planning.
Conservation Close to Home
Local governments across Canada are demonstrating leadership in area-based conservation to the benefit of their residents. Conservation Close to Home explores how local government conservation efforts can help achieve Canada’s national biodiversity goals and international commitments. This publication provides contextual information on area-based conservation and the importance of biodiversity preservation, with a local government focus.
Upcoming Events
How to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion while advancing climate action
Join us on Tuesday, November 8th from 1:00 to 2:00 pm ET / 10:00 to 11:00 am PT to review takeaways from the 2022 Livable Cities Forum and explore practical next steps to incorporating equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) into climate action. We will share a new resource developed specifically to help local governments integrate EDI into climate adaptation planning and implementation.
Introducing the Cost of Doing Nothing Toolbox
We are delighted to introduce a new resource to support the municipal adaptation planning process: the Cost of Doing Nothing (CODN) Toolbox. The CODN Toolbox provides a jumping off point for municipalities to assess the costs of doing nothing in response to climate change within their own local context. It provides guidance on collecting locally-relevant data, and weighing the costs of action vs. inaction. It also includes an editable template, a data collection tracking tool, examples, and instructions to make building a business case for climate adaptation as easy and simple as possible. Join us Wednesday November 16 from 1:00 to 2:30 pm ET / 10:00 to 11:00 am PT to learn how to use the CODN Toolbox to build a local business case for climate adaptation.
Partners for Climate Protection Events
Join our monthly drop-in sessions for an open discussion on climate mitigation with the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) Secretariat and other PCP member municipalities. The PCP porgram hosts a variety of other events to help members overcome challenges related to climate change. Check-in regularly to discover new webinars, monthly drop-ins, recordings and more.
Events from ICLEI’s Global Network
Daring Cities
Daring Cities 2022, a virtual experience for urban decision-makers leading in the climate emergency, took place Oct 3 to 7. The recordings of the sessions will be made available on the Daring Cities website soon.
Insights & Exchange
ICLEI USA’s Insights & Exchange webinar series will explore different avenues of progressive local climate action over the next six months. Learn more and register.
Team Updates
Celebrating staff milestones
Although most of us know Ewa as ICLEI Canada’s Managing Director, did you know she started her career with the ICLEI World Secretariat as the Membership Database Coordinator in 2002? This summer marked her 20 year ICLEI work anniversary! We also celebrated Anne-Marie’s three year anniversary as Manager of the Quebec Office, Rena’s first full year as Climate Change Program Manager, and Robert’s one year work anniversary and promotion from Climate Change Project Assistant to Climate Change Planner.
Welcome to the team Salvatore!
Salvatore Quartarone joined the ICLEI team as a Climate Change Intern in September. He will primarily work on the Advancing Adaptation project where he will help put together case studies for the 11 municipalities taking part in the implementation cohort. Salvatore is in his fourth year at the University of Toronto, completing a double major in Environmental Studies and Human Geography.
A word from our summer interns
“I learned a lot during my three month internship while working on the Ville de Repentigny, MRC Thérèse de Blainville, and Ville de Mirabel BARC projects. I enjoyed helping cities with their risk assessment and action prioritization workshops as well as the post-workshop data analysis and report writing. I felt like I could ask questions anytiome. It was a very collaborative process and even though I was working from home, it really felt like I was part of the team, that the team really trusted me, and that my opinion mattered. I felt like I was learning and contributing at the same time.”
“The internship was an incredible learning experience, which gave me the opportunity to further develop my research, writing and critical thinking skills in a variety of ways, guided by the very supportive and encouraging team at ICLEI. I got the opportunity to examine how governments conduct their own risk and vulnerability assessments, create goals, and develop plans to achieve those goals and have a newfound appreciation for the time and effort it takes to even reach the implementation stage.”
Reach us
ICLEI Canada
401 Richmond St W (Suite 204)
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8