The 26e The United Nations Climate Change Conference is now in full swing in Glasgow, Scotland. For once again, elected officials, activists and other leaders from around the world are gathered to accelerate the pace and thus try to place humanity on a trajectory that would allow us to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. The challenge is gargantuan, and time is running out to limit global warming below the 1.5 ° C threshold.
Although the climate crisis is global and calls for global solutions, it is at the heart of our local communities that its consequences strike the most vulnerable populations. Greater Montreal is no exception: battered by historic floods in 2011, 2017 and 2019, our region also suffered a historic heatwave that caused 66 premature deaths in 2018. And this summer, while Western Canada and the Ontario was on fire, Montreal was enduring a smog alert, and our emergencies were filling up under end-of-the-world skies.
It is also in large urban regions that solutions must first be deployed that will allow a shift towards low-carbon communities that are resilient in the face of future climate shocks.
Our living environments, our mobility systems, our buildings and our consumption patterns are set to be radically transformed. These transformations should not accentuate inequalities, but on the contrary ensure that no one is left behind.
As a community foundation aspiring to support in perpetuity the well-being of the population of Greater Montreal, the eyes of the Foundation of Greater Montreal (FGM) must be focused on future generations, and on the state of the planet and the territory that we will leave them as a heritage. This is why the FGM has decided to resolutely engage in global mobilization for the climate.
This commitment takes many forms. Earlier this year, we launched the Collective Fund for Climate and Ecological Transition. This fund has made it possible to finance several major initiatives to fight climate change, protect biodiversity, and reduce environmental inequalities in our territory.
We have also launched, in collaboration with the Trottier Family Foundation and the City of Montreal, the Montreal Climate Partnership. This initiative brings together 25 major organizations from business and finance, academia, and the energy, transportation and environment sectors, working together to place Montreal at the forefront of major cities in the world. world in terms of combating and adapting to climate change.
The FGM also supported the creation of the Ecological Transition Campus, an organization combining research, experimentation and development of spaces and buildings in Parc Jean-Drapeau in order to create solutions today to the challenges of tomorrow, like Terre des Hommes l did half a century ago.
Finally, we will mobilize our $ 400 million in financial assets in the fight against climate change, by adopting a new responsible investment strategy. Integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors as well as climate risk management into our entire portfolio, this strategy provides for a 45% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, as well as the achievement of of carbon neutrality by 2050, objectives that join those of the Paris Agreement.
The climate crisis is one of the most important causes of our time, and our common response to this challenge will resonate for generations after our own. We call on all the leaders of Greater Montreal to join us in taking decisive action. The FGM is your community foundation, and it will put itself at the service of this collective effort.
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