For the Global Climate Strike on November 29 (11:30 at Queen's Park), Toronto350 joins Fridays For Future Toronto/GTA to demand climate justice. As a key part of the rally and march, we will confront RBC, Canada's largest financer of the fossil fuel industry. The action is part of an international campaign, Fossil Banks No Thanks, targeting global banks as major drivers of the climate crisis. The following is a statement from Fossil Banks No Thanks.

The streets swell with marchers who demand solutions to the climate crisis. But a big obstacle to limiting the climate crisis exists. Banks. 

Every incremental change made matters, but to make a big impact, we need to demand that banks commit to stop funding fossil fuels now. Only massive public pressure will make banks end their support for this climate-wrecking industry. 

The Global #ClimateStrike makes it clear that people across the world will not put up with any more delays for proper climate action. This means #FossilBanks too must step up their ambition and put an end to the #FossilFuel finance era.

What has created this crisis, cannot solve it. Change must come from below, through the millions who protest climate destruction and demand their institutions are accountable to them, not to polluting Industries. Global mass movements, respecting and being lead by Indigenous and grassroots knowledge, can finally generate the political will to move the conversation about a livable future from theory to action. 

These banks are making you, their customers, complicit in their climate denial. RBC is on the list of the top fossil funders, first in Canada and fifth in the world. 

It is time to say #notwithmymoney. 

The next UN Climate Conference in Madrid is a critical turning point. If we want a livable future, we have to push banks to change, and make the countries in which they operate realize the climate threat they pose. The countries have pledged to comply with the Paris Agreement, but these banks aren’t toeing the line. 

The youth have asked us a simple thing - help us. While they strike every Friday, we will be out demanding that our bank managers stop enabling destructive industry and instead, be part of creating a livable future for all.

A series of rolling actions are taking place from November, to push finance to the forefront of the Climate negotiations at COP25 in Madrid, and into banks AGM season in 2020 and to ensure real change at COP Paris +5 next year in Glasgow. We will ask people to tell their local fossil bank to: 

• Publicly clarify their position on the relation between climate change and the extraction and burning of fossil fuels
• Publicly commit to immediately end their support for all new fossil fuel projects, including exploration, extraction, transportation and power
• Publish a robust plan for phasing out their support for all existing fossil fuel projects and companies on a timetable consistent with what is necessary to meet the Paris targets

 We don’t have time for business as usual. Don’t let them make your children pay the price with your own money.