Grassroots Versus Grasstops: The Complex Dynamics of Achieving a Just Transition

The case for a just and equitable climate transition in Canada is clear and compelling. And climate activists and advocates across sectors are working to enable systemic transformation and policy change, shift mindsets and behaviour, mobilize mass movements, and more – all at the same time.

But what is the relationship between top-down and bottom-up change processes? How can residents and governments collaborate in pursuit of shared goals?

We’ll be joined by Seth Klein, author of A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency and Team Lead and Director of Strategy with the Climate Emergency Unit. Together, we’ll unpack questions around the complex dynamics of advocacy and engagement that is focused on the grassroots level (mobilizing everyday people behind a cause) versus the grasstops (targeting politicians and other influential people).

We’ll ground the conversation in two concrete campaigns underway at the Climate Emergency Unit:

• Just Transition Transfer: A proposal for a new audacious federal program – an annual transfer of money – from the federal government to lower levels of government

• Youth Climate Corps: An imagined flagship and transformative new public program that invites Canada’s youth to mobilize to confront the climate emergency

Join us for this exciting conversation on July 26!