The UK recently passed historic legislation setting a net-zero target for emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. Setting a target though, is one thing, delivering it is another. Achieving net-zero and responding to the climate emergency is not politics-as-usual.
In recognition of this, six Select Committees in Parliament have come together to run a citizen’s assembly on climate change this autumn. This step could be the first towards a wholesale rethink of the policy response needed. The process, however, needs to last. It needs to engage the broader public and connect it to the various local deliberative exercises taking place throughout the UK. Only then might it deliver on its promise of creating a clear picture of the public support and political mandate for action.
“Government ignored participants because by participating they ceased to be ‘ordinary voters’”
Much of the excitement around Citizen Assemblies stems from the Irish Citizen Assembly, which generated a public mandate for new policies on tricky and polarising topics like abortion, aging and fixed term parliaments. But there is a longer history of deliberation. Back in 2007, the UK government commissioned a Citizen Summit on Climate Change.
