About Us

Photo Credit: Nhattan Nguyen

We’re part of an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-centred renewable energy for all.

In Canada, we are committed to pushing our elected leaders to take real climate leadership by freezing tar sands expansion and delivering transformative just transition legislation. We do this by working with local frontline groups and organizations to fight for climate justice.

Our name “350” comes from 350ppm — as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. We like to think that what ppm really stands for is “people-powered movement” — the kind that will hold our leaders accountable, so we can start the global transformation we so desperately need in order to act on the climate crisis at the scale science and justice require.

Meet our team

Learn about 350.org’s work globally.

Our Team

Amara Possian — Team Lead (Toronto, ON)
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Meet Amara Possian, Canada Campaigns Manager at 350.org. This week, Amara joined our team to help run the Our Time campaign. Amara is a campaigner, facilitator, and engagement specialist with a decade of experience organizing for climate justice. During the 2015 election, she managed Leadnow’s Vote Together campaign and mobilized thousands to vote for the candidates most likely to defeat the Harper Conservatives. . . “We won… but we didn’t *really* win. We helped elect a government that made (and broke) game-changing promises: to change our broken voting system, to tackle climate change, to renew the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples. Four years later, the alt-right is on the rise, extreme weather is forcing people from their homes, and we’re arguing about half-measures like the carbon tax. That’s why it feels so meaningful to spend this election cycle throwing down to build power and to back brave, authentic candidates who will do politics differently, and who will champion a plan that actually matches the scale of the crises we’re facing.” Photo credit: @prolibertate.photography #OurTime2019 #climatechange #cndpoli #350

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Atiya Jaffar — Campaigns Manager (Vancouver, BC)

 

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Meet our Digital Campaigner Atiya Jaffar, who joined 350.org in 2014. Atiya is a climate justice activist and migrant from Pakistan, whose growing interest is in organizing that centers climate change impacts and migrant rights. We asked Atiya why she fights for climate justice: . . “Growing up, I was a child of many worlds. Before the age of 12, I had lived in 4 different countries and changed schools 7 times. Some of my earliest memories are of my brother and I tiptoeing over the hot sand on the beaches of Karachi, Pakistan, until waves of cool water washed over our feet. When I was a little older I remember boarding ferries on the Bosphorus in Istanbul, mystified every time by the ability of a thin channel of water to divide a city over two continents. And as I moved even farther West, to the unceded territories of the Coast Salish people, that some call Vancouver, I found myself in complete awe of the mountains and temperate rainforests that, as a child, I could have sworn stretched into the heavens. These childhood memories of the rich landscapes of South Asia, Turkey, and the West Coast of Turtle Island are vivid in my mind and my heart. And while will always carry with them a sense of nostalgic warmth, they also invoke sadness. As an adult, I’ve watched as massive floods, deadly heat waves, declining air quality, and raging wildfires devastate all the places I’ve called home. Love for these places and the people that live there is what drives my determination and commitment in the fight against climate change and corporate greed.” . . Photo credit: @prolibertate.photography #climatejustice #climateimpacts #OurTime2019 #NoOneIsIllegal #350

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Chris Gusen — Senior Digital and Communications Specialist (Kingston, ON)

 

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Meet our new digital organizer Chris Gusen. Chris is based in Kingston, Ontario and is relatively new to the climate justice movement. Before joining 350, Chris organized with @climatejusticeedmonton where he helped organize for a Green New Deal for Alberta. Chris hopes to bring his newcomer’s perspective to 350, where he’ll be using digital tools and techniques to grow and support the movement. We asked Chris why he decided to start organizing for climate justice: “In late 2018, while colleagues at the Government of Alberta debated concepts for the NDP government’s pro-TMX ad campaign, I was privately reckoning with the dire 12-year deadline the IPCC had announced that October. As the campaign rolled out, I was learning about the Sunrise Movement and watching videos of climate strikers singing “Which side are you on?” I saw firsthand that, even under supposedly progressive leadership, our governments still operate like an extension of the oil industry. I realized that focusing on reducing my individual carbon footprint had never been enough and I came to understand that collective action is the only way to confront the intertwined crises that define this moment. So when Jason Kenney took power, I quit my job to join the climate movement. The #OurTime2019 campaign was my introduction to organizing. I joined Climate Justice Edmonton after attending their Green New Deal town hall and learning about their connection to Our Time. Suddenly I had a new community, not just in Edmonton but across the country. Together, we turned our climate anxiety into meaningful action. I am thrilled that I get to work at 350 for the next year because now I have a chance to help other people get plugged into the movement and build the collective power we’ll need to win a Green New Deal.” #greennewdeal #greennewdealcanada #climatejustice

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Emma Jackson — Senior Organizing Specialist (Edmonton, AB)

 

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Meet our field organizer Emma Jackson who joined our team this January. Emma grew up in the Canadian labour movement and first began organizing in 2013 with the fossil fuel divestment movement across Mi’kma’ki (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia). Outside of her work with 350, she’s an organizer with @climatejusticeedmonton and a solidarity organizer with Migrante AB. We asked Emma why she organizes for climate justice. . . “Between the ages of 2 and 3, whenever a figure of authority would try and tell me what to do, I’d open my eyes really wide, stare them down, and say “You’re not the boss of me, I’m Emma.” . In a lot of ways, I think we all just want some sense of authority over our own lives, whether it be the freedom to move, the ability to love who we want, or the power to shape our own future. But as a young person growing up in the climate crisis, I’ve spent my entire life being robbed of that sense of authority. . I’m 26 years old. In 1992— the year that I was born— world leaders met to talk about climate change for the very first time. We now have less than half that time to reverse the most harmful and irreparable effects of climate change. HALF. . I organize for climate justice because I’m tired of living under a system that robs us all of our collective authority. I organize because I believe all migrants deserve the freedom to move, the freedom to stay, and the freedom to return. Because I believe all Indigenous peoples should control their own territories. And because I know that fossil fuel executives and their political allies aren’t the boss of us, and I’m ready to build a world that proves it.” #climatejustice #GreenNewDeal #OurTime2019 #350

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