Citizens’ assembly to consider climate measures

PEOPLE FROM across the country with a range of views on climate change will gather this weekend for a citizens’ assembly on how to cut emissions to net zero.

The first UK-wide citizens’ assembly on climate change, commissioned by six parliamentary select committees, is being asked to examine how the UK meets its legal target to cut greenhouse gases to zero overall by mid century.

Some 110 people will meet in Birmingham over four weekends, beginning this weekend, for Climate Assembly UK to learn from experts about climate change, and discuss how to meet the net zero goal.

They have been drawn from more than 1,800 people who responded to 30,000 invitations sent out to UK households selected at random and are representative of the UK population in age, gender, ethnicity, education and where they live.

They are also representative of the country in terms of how concerned they are about climate change, with three people not at all concerned, 16 not very concerned, 36 fairly concerned, 54 very concerned, and one who did not know, organisers said.

The £520,000 scheme has been funded through £120,000 from the select committees’ research budgets and two philanthropic foundations – the Esme Fairburn Foundation and the European Climate Foundation – which have had no input into the working of the assembly.

It is hoped the recommendations made by the assembly, which will be published in a report in April, will help inform Parliament and Government on policies to reach net zero. The group will look at areas such as buildings, transport and consumption of goods, and give their views on a range of options presented to them for tackling climate change.

Sarah Allan, of Involve, which is running the assembly along with the Sortition Foundation and mySociety, said: “What this citizens’ assembly will do is provide our Government and our Parliament with really high quality information about the public’s preferences for how we get to net zero.”