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Both anti-war and climate movements are fighting for justice and life for all people on a livable planet. It's increasingly clear that we can't have one without the other. No climate justice, no peace, no planet.

A just transition requires not only a transition from fossil fuels to renewables, but also demilitarization. Bloated defence and border security budgets not only fund violence and destruction, but absorb resources needed to fund a just transition, build a green economy, secure economic and racial justice, and end poverty. The constant threat of nuclear weapons concerns climate and peace movements alike. Even a limited nuclear exchange, whether accidental or intentional, would initiate a nuclear winter, with dire consequences in the form of drought, starvation and generalized misery. Conversely, climate change, by destroying livelihoods and rendering entire regions uninhabitable, undermines fragile states and exacerbates existing conflicts. This scenario is playing out most destructively in the Sahelian region of sub-Saharan Africa. Peace, justice and climate issues are inextricably linked.

There is growing momentum within the peace movement in Canada to address the outrageous carbon emissions of Canada's military, the devastating extraction of materials for war machines and toxic mine waste produced, and the terrible destruction of human life and ecological systems caused by the past few decades of Canada's war initiatives. We are witnessing and mobilizing to resist the militarized violence that continues colonization across Canada and particularly the ways that those taking a stand at the climate frontlines, especially Indigenous peoples, are regularly attacked and surveilled by the Canadian military.

Addressing the climate crisis is at odds with Canada's current plans to increase military expenditures astronomically, and sign contracts for the purchase of 88 new bomber jets and Canada's first fleet of unmanned armed drones. Not to mention Canada's growing role as a major global arms dealer and weapons manufacturer.