Sustainable Living - The Evesham Observer

Sustainable Living

Evesham Editorial 19th Sep, 2020   0

Mike Parker, Chair of SeSaME, writes for the Observer…

CLIMATE Assembly UK, what’s that about? Do you know? It had people like you and me in it and their final report has just been published.

It came about because the UK government passed global warming laws in June 2018, requiring the UK to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Six Select Committees of the House of Commons called a citizens assembly to understand public preferences on how the UK should tackle climate change, given the impact these decisions will have on people’s lives.

108 Assembly members were selected to represent the UK’s population in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, where in the UK they live and whether an urban or rural area, plus levels of concern about climate change. They sought a significant perspective on how the UK should address climate change: from all shades of opinion including very different views, discussing how the UK should meet this 2050 target.




Members met over six weekends in spring 2020. They heard balanced evidence from a broad range of stakeholders and researchers on the choices the UK faces, discussed them, and made recommendations.

They reached conclusions on what the UK should do to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and how it should do it: 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; greenhouse gas removals.


Their report Path to Net Zero is available online now.

They first focussed on and decided twenty-five underpinning principles that should support the UK’s path to net zero, using a vote to prioritise them.

Top principles prioritised by over half of all members

1. Informing and educating everyone (the public, industry, individuals and government)

2. Fairness within the UK, including for the most vulnerable (affordability, jobs, UK regions, incentives and rewards) in actions, not just words.

3. Leadership from government that is clear, proactive, accountable and consistent, with cross-party consensus.

4. Protecting and restoring the natural world.

Do read it and reasonably assemble your own climate views.

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