The first of a four-part climate assembly will begin in Birmingham on Saturday, where 110 British citizens will gather to thrash out solutions for reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
A citizens’ assembly for climate change, convened over two months at a cost of £520,000, will discuss how to meet the government’s legally binding goal. The participants, selected to reflect the make-up of the UK population, aims to produce a series of non-binding recommendations for parliament about how to decarbonise sectors such as transport and housing.
“The citizens’ assembly on climate change gives people a say on how the UK tackles climate change,” said Rachel Reeves, the MP for Leeds West and the former chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy select committee — one of the six cross-party House of Commons select committees that commissioned and part-funded the project.
The first weekend is an educational meeting, where participants will learn about the climate crisis. Options for reaching net zero by 2050, such as taxing frequent flyers, will then be chosen by the participants from a range being drawn up by four experts.
The specific questions and potential solutions to be debated — which will be considered by a 19-strong advisory panel and the six select committees — will be made public in the coming weeks.
Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion said the 2050 goal was too late and should be brought forward to 2025. It said the assembly lacked teeth, since the government can “completely ignore” the advisory report, due to be published in April.
Of the 30,000 people invited at random to take part, 2,000 agreed. The final 110 assembly members were chosen by a computer to reflect the general population, based on age, gender, ethnicity, education, where they live in the UK and their level of concern about climate change.
More than a quarter — 30 out of 110 — are aged 60 or older, 55 are women and 41 have little or no educational qualifications, reflecting research about the population by the Office for National Statistics and July polling by Ipsos Mori. Three are “not at all concerned” about climate change, while 16 are “not very concerned”.
Justifying the potential inclusion of climate sceptics in the group, Jim Watson, one of the expert advisers and a professor of energy policy at UCL, said it was important that the group be representative.
He said combating climate change was not the only reason to make changes, since solutions, such as making homes more energy efficient and reducing air pollution, would also benefit people’s health and reduce utility bills.
“There are other drivers at work here,” and even climate-change sceptics will be affected by policy changes, he added.
Participants were not asked about their employment and no screening was done to exclude people working for fossil fuel companies or with extreme opinions. Only elected members of parliament, their staff and paid members of political parties were excluded.
Craig Bennett, outgoing chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said the assembly “could play an important role” in decarbonising the UK, but should not “delay things further”.
He added: “We don’t need a citizens’ assembly to tell us that the UK government must invest urgently in a massive programme of home energy efficiency and public transport.”
Sarah Allan, from charity The Involve Foundation, which is running the assembly, said there would be no limits on what the assembly could propose, although the questions will be framed around the 2050 goal. The recommendations will not be costed, but experts will review them to ensure there are no contradictory policies.
“Not all the recommendations have to have complete consensus,” she said, adding that full voting results would be published in full.
Parliament put £120,000 towards the project, while the European Climate Foundation and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation put in £200,000 each.
