Climate Assembly UK comes to Westminster to repeat its call for greater ‘fairness and public engagement’ in COP26 countdown
|
Sir David Attenborough hails ‘remarkable’ Climate Assembly UK;
calls on political leaders to give people confidence that changes
needed to deliver net zero are desirable and possible for all, on
one year anniversary 50 days ahead of the UN climate summit in
Glasgow (COP26), Parliament is marking the one year anniversary of
the first ever UK-wide Climate Assemblyby bringing many of those
members of the UK public who took part to Westminster to meet
Parliamentarians for...Request free
trial
Sir David Attenborough hails ‘remarkable’ Climate Assembly UK; calls on political leaders to give people confidence that changes needed to deliver net zero are desirable and possible for all, on one year anniversary 50 days ahead of the UN climate summit in Glasgow (COP26), Parliament is marking the one year anniversary of the first ever UK-wide Climate Assemblyby bringing many of those members of the UK public who took part to Westminster to meet Parliamentarians for the first time as the original publication plans were disrupted by the pandemic. A year ago, Climate Assembly UK told MPs that they supported climate action but want to see leadership from government to ensure fairness and public engagement and to forge a cross-party consensus and a joined-up approach across society. A recent UN report warns that humans have had an ‘unequivocal’ impact on global warming and that human-induced climate change is already affecting weather extremes in every region of the world. In July, a House of Commons Committee published its report into the action government has taken since being sent the recommendations in Climate Assembly UK’s landmark report. The BEIS Committee report found that the government had failed to adequately engage the public with any of the major changes to their daily lives expected over the coming years as the net zero transition gathers pace, presenting a risk to current high levels of support for decarbonisation in the UK. The Committee will publish the Government’s response under embargo today. Sir David Attenborough, People's Advocate for COP26 says, "The world's scientists have been very clear on what's at stake for mankind if we don't act on climate change. Our political leaders now need to lead and give people confidence that all the changes needed to deliver net zero are desirable and possible for all of us. Parliament's Climate Assembly has done a truly remarkable job of highlighting the high levels of public support for climate action up and down this country and given government and MPs an invaluable roadmap of how it can be done. We owe the members of the UK public who took part in it a huge debt of gratitude. Above all, the Assembly has been abundantly clear that greater public participation and fairness is needed at the heart of all climate action and this is therefore a message I hope this government has heard loud and clear and certainly one I plan to share with all world leaders at COP26 in Glasgow.” Sue Peachey, from Bath, an Assembly Member who starred in the recent BBC iplayer documentary on the Assemblysays, “After several months of us all listening to advocates and experts, we reached the conclusion that change is imperative and set out our practical recommendations to make that change happen in a way we hope most people would find acceptable and achievable. The six committee chairs sent our report to Boris Johnson exactly a year ago so that it would highlight and hasten the public debate on net zero. I hope the Prime Minister will listen to people’s ideas and priorities and give the public a bigger role in delivering the UK’s net zero mission. If he takes time to inform and work with people who have legitimate concerns, we have shown he should be pushing at an open door.” Darren Jones MP, Chair of Parliament’s BEIS committee – one of six select committees which commissioned Climate Assembly UK – said, “Climate Assembly UK has done the Prime Minister’s homework for him by agreeing the best ways to achieve our net zero target through incremental changes to the way we heat our homes, travel and live. But the Prime Minister and Chancellor have so far seemed too scared to be upfront with people about the small changes that we will all need to make in the near future. The Government must build on the climate assembly’s work and urgently bring the public into the debate about what tackling climate change really means, explaining not just why it’s necessary but how it’ll have a positive effect on people’s lives.” Chris Stark, Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee and one of the Assembly’s Expert Leads said: “The remarkable public response to the pandemic shows the importance of clear and timely government communication. There are lessons for the UK’s climate response, chief among them the importance of engaging people on the options and ensuring they have the opportunity to contribute to decisions about their own future. There’s a huge difference between focus groups and participative methods like citizen assemblies. The government can help clear the path to Net Zero UK by putting public engagement more clearly at the heart of their new Net Zero strategy.” A new report from the Institute of Government and Involve highlights the lack of preparedness in government to engage the public in policy design around net zero, warning there is limited government capability and expertise on public engagement and little coordination of activities across government. Hannah White, Deputy Director, Institute for Government says, “Finding ways to involve the public in decision making is going to be critical to meeting the task of transitioning the whole economy to net zero. But the government has failed to build on Climate Assembly UK, held a year ago, and departments still lack the capability and expertise to do public engagement well. We need to see a different approach in forthcoming strategies if the public are to be at the heart of the net zero transition.” Sarah Allan, Director of Capacity Building and Standards at Involve, the organisation which ran Climate Assembly UK said, "The Prime Minister has said the path to net zero is about coal, cars, cash and trees - but unless it's about people too, we don't reach net zero. For the first time, Parliament's Climate Assembly UK has put the voices of members of the public from across the UK at the heart of solving one of the biggest challenges our country faces. This trust in the public has been rewarded with a clear roadmap for policy-makers. Whatever is agreed at COP26 can only be implemented fairly and effectively if people across the country understand what needs to be done, consent to it and act on it at a local level. That is why the Government must embrace the Assembly's report and ensure a greater role for public awareness and participation to achieve Net Zero.” In 2020, for the first time in its history, Parliament decided to put the question of how we reach our national climate targets to the people in the first UK-wide climate assembly. 108 members of the UK public took part and their recommendations made back to MPs could have a big impact on the way we all live our lives over the next few decades. The Assembly’s ground-breaking report - ‘The Path to Net Zero’ – was published on 10 September 2020 and called on government to put fairness and greater public awareness at the heart of its plans to deliver Net Zero UK to secure public buy-in for future net zero policies. After weeks of deliberation, and undeterred by lockdowns, assembly members sent a clear message back to Parliament that they supported bold climate action to deliver Net Zero by 2050 but they called for net zero policies to be fair and backed by better public awareness, choice and clear government leadership. Their final report represents a unique, timely and valuable body of evidence for MPs to scrutinise government climate policy. The Assembly’s report was forwarded to No10 and welcomed by government ministers. It was also used as evidence by the Climate Change Committee for their Sixth Carbon Budget which, in turn, has informed the government’s recent pledge to cut national carbon emissions by 78% by 2035. -ENDS- Notes to editors:
About Climate Assembly UK: In 2019, six Select Committees of the House of Commons commissioned the citizens’ assembly to understand public preferences on how the nation should reach the UK’s legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050, because of the impact climate policy decisions will have on people’s lives. The work of Climate Assembly UK is designed to strengthen and support the UK’s parliamentary democracy by ensuring politicians and policy makers have the best possible evidence available to them about public preferences on reaching the net zero target. Parliament will use the report to support its work on scrutinising the Government’s climate change policy and progress on the target. In December 2020, Climate Assembly UK published its final report, The path to net zero, despite delays to the process because of the COVID pandemic. The report sent a strong message to Parliament and the Government to rise to the challenge of achieving the net zero target in a clear, accountable way. In response to calls for strong government leadership and cross-party cooperation, the Chairs of the six commissioning Select Committees wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, urging him to ensure that the Government acts on the recommendations of Climate Assembly UK by “showing leadership at the very highest level of government” ahead of the UK hosting COP26 in November 2021. They have also written to the leaders of the other parties represented at Westminster, highlighting the role opposition party leaders have to play in delivering cross-party consensus on reaching net zero. In December 2020, the Assembly’s findings informed the Climate Change Committee’s influential Sixth Carbon Budget: https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/sixth-carbon-budget/ In July 2021, Parliament published findings of a new inquiry into the action government has taken since being made aware of the recommendations from Climate Assembly UK’s report. The government is due to respond in September. Climate Assembly UK Recommendations (published on 12 September 2020) Climate Assembly UK’s report shows how a representative sample of the population believe the UK should meet its net zero emissions commitment with detailed recommendations across ten areas including: how we travel; what we eat and how we use the land; what we buy; heat and energy use in the home; how we generate our electricity; and greenhouse gas removals. Each chapter of the report details assembly members’ views on the advantages and disadvantages - including the trade-offs and co-benefits - of different ways of reaching net zero, and the results of the votes by secret ballot that followed. The Executive Summary provides an overview of the key considerations and conditions agreed by Assembly members as well as the balance of support for each recommendation. Examples of the assembly’s recommendations on each topic include:
The report includes the assembly’s recommendations on Covid-19 recovery and the path to net zero, the key elements of which were originally published in June 2020 to help inform the Government's response to the Covid-19 crisis. In total, the report contains over 50 recommendations for policy measures designed to meet the net zero target by 2050. The report also conveys Assembly members’ agreement on themes that recurred throughout their discussions, on the need for:
It also stresses the assembly’s support for protecting and restoring nature, and the value of ‘co-benefits’ to tackling climate change, such as improved health, advantages for local communities, high streets and the economy, including by the promotion of innovation in technology. It calls on policy makers to make use of the report as an “invaluable resource” for decision making. The report is the culmination of more than 6000 hours of Assembly sessions (just under 60 hours per member) across six weekends in 2020 - as well as a memorable address from Sir David Attenborough at the Assembly’s first gathering in Birmingham in January. A total of 47 speakers from academia, industry and policy faced challenging and insightful questions from assembly members, with live-streams, recordings and transcripts of their presentations available online. When the Assembly’s final weekend in Birmingham (due to take place 20th - 22nd March) was cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the assembly was taken online across a further three weekends, with Assembly members’ support, to ensure they could complete their work. The preferences of the 108 Assembly members, selected to represent the UK’s population in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, where in the UK they live and whether they live in an urban or rural area, and level of concern about climate change, offer a significant perspective on how the UK should address climate change. From the outset of the process, the Assembly welcomed the engagement of a number of high profile individuals from prominent business, faith and civil society leaders from across UK society. About the BBC Documentary The People vs Climate Change: The BBC documentary follows a handful of climate assembly members demographically and attitudinally chosen to represent the country as a whole, from all walks of life and from all corners of the UK. Most began their climate assembly experience knowing or caring very little about climate change, or how to tackle it. The film tracks their individual journeys into greater climate consciousness and their influential collective recommendations to MPs on how best to deliver the government’s ambitious national and international climate commitments: Richard (75) from Kent a retired engineer was reluctant to spend less time with his three-litre motor-home was concerned that job losses and the costs required to deliver net zero could outweigh the benefits for global Britain and limit personal freedom. He said he hoped nature will take care of itself and felt government would struggle to make the public case for net zero, “I think Brexit has really shown that you can’t push the British public around. When it comes to it, they are bloody-minded and…if you can’t persuade people on climate change then you won’t get it.” As the assembly moved online, tragically Richard was diagnosed with lung cancer and his health and lockdown experience caused him to re-evaluate his views particularly on pollution and the benefits of cleaner air. Sue Peachey (56) from Bath, a manager of retirement apartments in Bristol, said that before taking part in the assembly she had never been ‘eco-friendly’ or questioned why storms were now causing more local flooding. She feels privileged to have had the opportunity to learn about climate change and thinks everyone – especially her generation – will benefit from being more informed on the issue. As the assembly is forced to move online due to the pandemic, she says: “I’ve never done anything like it…I’ve never been sort of eco-friendly... It’s got my brain going again ‘cos I didn’t know nothing. So now everybody needs to learn what I’ve learned.” Sue has since joined her local parish council to share her new knowledge and bought a second-hand electric car to continue to do her bit for the planet: “It’s a bit like a massive mobile phone but instead of making calls, it takes you places…I love it!” Charley (25) from Northamptonshire found air travel one of the trickiest issues to discuss. She loves holidays and, before having a baby, was regularly taking four or five overseas holidays a year, and sometimes as many as nine. She lives at home with her father who says cheap flights have now made it normal for people to expect a holiday of a lifetime three times a year. She concludes that if a frequent flyer levy is put in place then “I will be made to make changes and, maybe, that’s for the better. Something has to be done; I don’t think there is any other option.” Marc Robson (46) from Newcastle works for British Gas fitting smart meters. As a proud ex-Marine from a coal-mining family, he accepts change is coming to the fossil fuel industry but has real concerns about job losses and wants big companies and government to manage the transition properly so that, instead of burying its head in the sand, the UK becomes a world leader in new low carbon jobs. At the launch of the report, he told Parliament, “Be bold…people are willing to change if educated properly and given the facts”. He is optimistic that the UK can rise to the net zero challenge saying, “There are still going to be jobs out there…they are just going to be new jobs and, the more I’ve looked into it, I think it’s going to be a good thing.” Former banker and university lecturer in business studies, Folajimi (43) from Coventry, understands climate change is man-made but says he is not going to panic and is optimistic about mankind’s ability to innovate. Having grown up in Nigeria, he views the global climate change problem as a problem for wealthy developed countries to solve: “For me, the UK should be leading… It’s a business opportunity and an opportunity for the UK to innovate.” Postal worker Amy (27) from Scarborough initially struggled to grasp some of the net zero terminology but learning more about low carbon home heating led her to question whether the coal fire in her rented home was impacting her son’s health: “If it is the coal that is causing his asthma, then I want it gone…I would prefer having a heat pump or solar panels but are we going to get help buying them? It’s all good ideas but you’re looking at thousands of pounds.” |