The Saskatchewan city of Estevan, which calls itself "The Energy City" because of its coal-fired generators and oil production, has won the right to host a national music festival to raise awareness of climate change.
The city of 10,000 had the most entries per capita to a web-based contest that encouraged people to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions and take action to reduce them.
Organized by the group Environmental Defence, the Flick Off contest attracted 366 Canadian communities to compete for the festival prize.
Co-ordinator Lorne Cooperberg said that the winner was a city like Estevan, which has an economy based largely on power production, coal mining, and oil and gas production.
"A lot of the awareness happens in the big cities so it's really great to get the awareness in a smaller town," he said.
"Saskatchewan gets a lot of its power from oil and coal, and coal is awful and so is oil. So we have to think about greener resources and cleaner electricity, so what better place to start than somewhere that's using those kinds of resources to begin with."
Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson announced Estevan's win in Toronto on Monday, saying "humanity's window to act on climate change is narrowing" and it's time to take action.
"It's up to each of us to find new ways of getting more people involved in this global fight. So next spring, Estevan will hold a carbon-neutral party to raise awareness, spreading the word to more Canadians. It's going to be a blast."
There's no cost to get into the festival.
"There'll be no cover at the door," Branson said. "In fact, we're going to throw the door wide open so all of Canada can hear. Not just great music, but real solutions that let each of us do more to fight the crisis of our time."
The performers have yet to be announced.
With files from the Canadian PressRelated
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