Climate assembly members think and act differently on climate, two years on

Posted on January 12, 2023 by The Constitution Unit

Climate assemblies are becoming more common across the world as governments and others consider how best to tackle the climate crisis .As their use has grown, so has interest in how they are commissioned, run, and evaluated. Research into their impact on decision-makers has also increased. However very few studies have looked at the long-term impact on assembly members themselves. Sarah Allan discusses new research that shows this impact could be long-lasting and cover changes in both attitudes and behaviours.

Climate Assembly UK was commissioned by six select committees of the House of Commons to examine the question, ‘How should the UK reach its climate target of net zero emissions by 2050?’. It brought together 108 members of the public who together broadly reflected the UK population in terms of their demographics, climate attitudes and geography. Assembly members met over six weekends to hear evidence from speakers with a wide range of different perspectives, discuss what they thought with one another and reach their conclusions.

The focus of the assembly was on providing input to the six select committees to inform their work. Assembly members were not asked to make changes to their own lives, nor were they given information or support aimed at helping them to do so. And yet, in the weeks and months after the assembly ended, its members started telling me and my colleagues Involve about changes they were making to how they lived. They had bought an electric car, become a parish councillor, started a climate-friendly business, and more. Our interest was piqued. Were the people contacting us the exception or had lots of assembly members made similar changes?

We teamed up with Stephen Elstub and Jayne Carrick from Newcastle University to find out. Together we sent assembly members two additional research surveys – one in April 2021, roughly a year after the end of the assembly events, and the second in September 2022, two years after the launch of the assembly’s final report. 73% of assembly members responded to one or both of the surveys and gave permission for the Newcastle University team to use their results. Analysis shows that the small number of differences between these assembly members’ backgrounds and attitudes, and those of the assembly members who filled out our research surveys during the assembly, do not explain our findings.

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The momentum behind climate assemblies

Posted on August 4, 2021 by The Constitution Unit

Following an increase in the use of citizens’ assemblies to aid policymakers in seeking solutions to the problems posed by climate change, Robert Liao asks why this particular subject is so commonly the theme of citizens’ assemblies, before analysing whether such processes produce recommendations that genuinely inform policymaking.

The so-called ‘deliberative wave’ of recent years and months has seen citizens’ assemblies convened by a number of national and local or regional governments. Of these assemblies, climate change is the most popular topic. In the past year, high-profile climate assemblies in the UK, France, Scotland, Denmark and Germany have made recommendations for policymakers, while further assemblies have been convened or announced in Austria and Spain. Local democracy is seeing a similar surge in climate assemblies: a January post on the Unit’s blog found that nine out of 13 recent local citizens’ assemblies in the UK focused on climate change or air quality.

This post explores two questions: Why, exactly, is climate change so popular as a topic for citizens’ assemblies? And do these deliberative mini-publics actually produce recommendations which inform green policymaking?

Why Climate Change?

The most obvious answer to this question is that climate change is, arguably, the biggest threat facing humanity, and we are already feeling its devastating effects. The climate plays an ever-bigger role in global politics: over 100 countries have pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Given this, it is to be expected that green policy would be an important issue to put to citizens’ assemblies.

But citizens’ assemblies may be especially well–suited to finding solutions on an issue such as climate change. In an age of unprecedented division and polarisation, it is increasingly difficult to reach a political consensus. This is particularly true for what are sometimes called ‘wicked problems’: multi-faceted dilemmas [DB1] that resist solution through conventional channels. It is precisely these problems that cause politicians greatest difficulty: politicians know that action is needed, but they fear being punished at the polls for whatever actions they opt for. Rebecca Willis, one of the expert leads for Climate Assembly UK, has identified a ‘dual reality’, in which most politicians acknowledge the growing danger of climate change but carry on with politics as usual. In a study following a series of interviews with MPs, she determined that climate action is still seen as an issue outside the political mainstream, and so few MPs consider it in their interest to act decisively on the climate.

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Monitor 75: The constitution under COVID-19

Posted on July 7, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

alan.jfif (1) Monitor 75, the latest edition of the Unit’s regular news update on constitutional issues, was published this morning. Since the last edition in March, what had once been the defining issue of this political generation — Brexit — has been almost entirely subsumed by an even larger crisis: COVID-19. A new and inexperienced government has found itself temporarily without its Prime Minister, announced the departure of the Cabinet Secretary, and encountered significant dissension from the backbenches on more than one occasion. Tensions within the Union have been thrown into stark relief by the increasingly different courses pursued by its constituent nations. As for the state of democracy, parliament has trialled numerous methods of operation, passing laws and changing how it regulates itself in multiple ways, whilst elections have been put on hold and organisations involved in deliberative democracy have struggled to continue their work. Meg Russell and Alan Renwick discuss the key events and themes of the past four months, and also reflect briefly on the Unit’s history as it celebrates its 25th anniversary.

As the last issue of Monitor went to press in early March the idea that COVID-19 might change everything was only just dawning. In the subsequent four months, its impact on politics as well as daily life has been transformational. Just as the UK hoped to exit one torrid period of politics dominated by a single issue, a new, still bigger challenge eclipsed it. Brexit has barely featured in the past few months’ political news. Instead, Boris Johnson rapidly shifted from the Prime Minister who would ‘get Brexit done’ to the one who needed to steer the nation through a health crisis, and perhaps in due course through an economic crisis as well.

COVID-19 has touched almost every aspect of how politics is done, and raised new questions about the functioning of some aspects of the UK constitution, as this issue of Monitor sets out. The Coronavirus Bill was rushed through both chambers of parliament – with consent from the devolved legislatures – in just six days in March, as the official ‘lockdown’ was just beginning. At the outset this barred most workplaces from opening and confined most people – except when undertaking limited activities – to their homes. The Prime Minister spoke to the nation in a televised address, and daily Downing Street press conferences involving ministers and (usually) government scientists became the norm, seven days per week. On 6 April Boris Johnson himself was hospitalised with the virus, leaving Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputise (see page 12). Other key ministers and officials – notably including Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings – also fell ill.

At the start of the crisis there was widespread support for the government’s position, within the governing party, across the parties and among the devolved administrations. Public approval for the government’s handling was high, in what political scientists would see was typical of the ‘rally round the flag’ effect often found in national crises. But since that time, tensions have gradually grown. Continue reading →

Permanent joint committees in Belgium: involving citizens in parliamentary debate

Posted on May 28, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

Citizens’ assemblies are increasingly used in the UK and around the world to examine difficult policy questions. But they are typically ad hoc and therefore heavily reliant on political good will – prompting the question of whether they can be built into policymaking processes more systematically. The parliament of Belgium’s Brussels region has just launched an experiment in doing exactly that. Elisa Minsart and Vincent Jacquet describe the changes that have been introduced and consider their chances of success.

Amidst wide public disillusionment with the institutions of representative democracy, political scientists, campaigners and politicians have intensified efforts to find an effective mechanism to narrow the gap between citizens and those who govern them. One of the most popular remedies in recent years – and one frequently touted as a way to break the Brexit impasse encountered by the UK political class in 2016-19 – is that of citizens’ assemblies. These deliberative forums gather diversified samples of the population, recruited through a process of random selection. Citizens who participate meet experts, deliberate on a specific public issue and make a range of recommendations for policy-making. Citizens’ assemblies are flourishing in many representative democracies – not least in the UK, with the current Climate Assembly UK and Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland. They show that citizens are able to deliberate on complex political issues and to deliver original proposals.

For several years now, some public leaders, scholars and politicians have sought to integrate these democratic innovations into more traditional political structures. Belgium recently made a step in this direction. Each of Belgium’s three regions has its own parliament, with full legislative powers: on 13 November 2019, a proposition was approved to modify how the Parliament of the Brussels Region operates. The reform mandates the establishment of joint deliberative committees, on which members of the public will serve alongside elected representatives. This will enable ordinary people to deliberate with MPs on preselected themes and to formulate recommendations. The details of the process are currently still being drafted and the first commission is expected to launch at the end of 2020. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, drafting and negotiations with other parties have not been interrupted thanks to an online platform and a videoconference facility.

This experience has been inspired by other initiatives organised in Belgium. In 2011, the G1000 initiative brought together more than 700 randomly selected citizens to debate on different topics. This grassroots experiment attracted lots of public attention. In its aftermath, the different parliaments of the country launched their own citizens’ assemblies, designed to tackle specific local issues. Some international experiences also inspired the Brussels Region, in particular the first Irish Constitutional Convention (2012–2014). This assembly was composed of both elected representatives and randomly selected citizens, and led directly to a referendum that approved the legalisation of same-sex marriage. However, the present joint committees go well beyond these initiatives. Whereas both of these predecessors were ad hoc initiatives designed to resolve particular problems, the Brussels committees will be permanent and hosted at the heart of the parliament. Both of these aspects make the new committees a major innovation and entirely different from the predecessors that helped inspire them. Continue reading →

How we moved Climate Assembly UK online

Posted on May 8, 2020 by The Constitution Unit

The restrictions on public gatherings brought in as a response to the coronavirus pandemic pose challenges to those seeking to set up and run effective citizens’ assemblies. For those involved in the already-running Climate Assembly UK, those challenges had to be understood and met without the benefit of the preparation time future remote assemblies might have. Sarah Allan explains how she moved that assembly online.

Climate Assembly UK moved online at the end of March 2020. Since then, we’ve held two assembly weekends online, with all assembly members still involved.

A fair few people from around the world have been in touch to ask how this worked. The answers to their questions and my wider reflections on online assemblies are too much for one blog post, but this is a start.

For those less familiar with it, Climate Assembly UK is the first UK-wide citizens’ assembly on climate change. It was commissioned by six cross-party committees of the House of Commons to look at how the UK should meet its target of net-zero emissions. You can read more about that and the assembly here.

The assembly was meant to meet over four weekends in Birmingham between late January and late March 2020. The first three of these weekends took place as planned. However, the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic led to the fourth weekend being postponed, and then to the decision to move the assembly online.

This was a first. No citizens’ assembly in the UK – or in the world, as far as we’re aware – has ever taken place online, with the exception of one meeting of la Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat.

There were lots of considerations about whether, and how, to make this shift. Here I focus on four themes. The description of each is not exhaustive, but I’ve highlighted some of the points that feel most important. Continue reading →

The Constitution Unit Blog

Tag Archives: Climate Assembly UK

Climate assembly members think and act differently on climate, two years on

The momentum behind climate assemblies

Monitor 75: The constitution under COVID-19

Permanent joint committees in Belgium: involving citizens in parliamentary debate

How we moved Climate Assembly UK online

The Constitution Unit Blog

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