Citizens’ assembly to tackle climate emergency

A citizens’ assembly on climate change is to meet this autumn as part of a government drive to explore the fastest and fairest ways to cut the UK’s carbon emissions.

The move by MPs looks to address one of the demands set out by Extinction Rebellion in April, when anti-climate change protests brought parts of London to a standstill.

After Parliament declared a climate emergency, Theresa May used one of her last major acts as prime minister to set 2050 as the date for Britain to end greenhouse gas emissions, making it the first major economy in the world to do so.

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Meeting the target will be a major challenge and “mean emissions from homes, transport, farming and industry will have to be avoided completely or - in the most difficult examples - offset by planting trees or sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere”, says the BBC.

Rachel Reeves MP, chair of the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee said this goal “isn’t a challenge for just one parliament, one political party, or one generation”, and to achieve net zero by 2050 “we need to build cross-party and cross-generational support for the actions needed to deliver it”.

She said there needed to be both strong government action and buy-in from the public for the environmental, health and employment benefits that achieving zero emissions could bring to be realised.

Recent polling data suggests climate change is a major concern for many people in the UK, ranking above the economy, crime or immigration. But Green Business says “little is known about what the UK public think when it comes to managing the hugely complex task of managing a net zero transition. How should costs be borne? How much disruption is the public prepared to face? How can the benefits be shared and maximised? How can opponents of the transition be engaged? These are questions that are rarely asked outside corporate and NGO strategy sessions or academic lecture theatres”.

The business site says with a citizens’ assembly, “the aim is to go beyond the kneejerk reaction of a poll, to gain a deeper understanding of public attitudes to a particular social issue, and what policies they would agree with to address it”.

The Guardian describes a citizens’ assembly as “a representative group of members of the public who come together to learn about and debate issues, and come to conclusions on the best solutions”.

Participants are often chosen to reflect the wider population in terms of demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity, class and sometimes political attitudes.

“Industrialised countries have started to make increased use of Citizens Assemblies,” reports Reuters, “to serve both as pressure valves on contentious issues and to mobilise support for decisions that legislatures driven by election cycles might struggle to pass”.

They have been used in Canada, Australia, the United States and most successfully in Ireland to help set the terms of the abortion referendum debate.

The British Parliament has had such assemblies before, for example to assess social care.

Yet while environmental groups have welcome the public’s involvement in reducing UK carbon emissions, they have said the citizens’ assembly will only work if their decisions were binding.

Roger Hallam, from Extinction Rebellion, said: “We have a citizens’ assembly that will give recommendations. Everyone knows what that means, which is it will come out with some ideas and get ignored, like people have been ignored for the last 30 years.”

“If you are going to do a citizens’ assembly it has to have teeth and be legally binding,” he added.

Meanwhile, Areeba Hamid, at Greenpeace UK, claimed “for it to work, it needs to be more than just a glorified public consultation”.

“Will ministers be forced to take its conclusions into account or will they be able to brush them aside as they have done with countless consultations before? The solutions to tackle the climate emergency have been around for decades – what’s been lacking is the political will to make it happen.”