Two days after the French citizens 'convention, the progress of which it closely followed, the British citizens' assembly on the climate issued its pre-conclusions on Tuesday 23 June. This "timing" has nothing to do with the French agenda: it is directly linked to the national political tempo. Within a decade, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, are expected to unveil a plan to try to revive an economy shut down by three months of containment.
The climate assembly will make its final conclusions in September (concrete proposals in support) but its organizers already want to influence these imminent government decisions, with at least two important messages. The British hope that the “post-pandemic” recovery plan will be an opportunity to accelerate the transition from the United Kingdom to a “zero carbon” economy, in order to meet the national target of zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. They are also ready for significant lifestyle changes to achieve this.
Following a secret ballot organized with the 108 members of the assembly on May 16 and 17, a large majority of them – 79% exactly – are "Totally agree" or " Okay " so that "Measures taken by the government to help the economy recover are designed to achieve the goal of zero net emissions". Only 9% " disagree " or "Absolutely disagree", and 12% have no firm opinion.
Limit aid to sectors with high carbon emissions
As in France, the participants were randomly selected from 30,000 English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish households and are representative in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, socio-economic background of the national population.
Parents, grandparents, caregivers or engineers: they started working in February, gathering on weekends at a Birmingham conference center, before finishing their online discussions. Their anonymity has so far been protected: the media have only had access to the results of their meetings. Many suggest that the government limit aid to highly carbon-emitting sectors – or condition it for a transition to low-carbon models. The main targets are the aviation sector and the extraction of gas and oil in the North Sea (around 5% of Scottish gross domestic product). The members of the assembly also hope for additional investments in infrastructure: transport, construction and rehabilitation of housing.
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