Scotland’s Climate Assembly is giving 100 people living in Scotland a unique opportunity to learn more about climate change and consider what actions Scotland should take to ‘to tackle the climate emergency in an effective and fair way?’

A citizens’ assembly brings together a group of people to learn about, discuss, and deliberate on a difficult issue, and reach a conclusion about what they think should happen.

The Scottish Assembly have at the time of this blog held three weekend of meetings. During their first meeting weekend members learnt about the science of climate change; the impacts of a changing climate; and  actions that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The second weekend focused on exploring where Scotland’s emissions come from; how they can be reduced; and what we are doing to adapt to the impacts of climate change in Scotland. The third weekend Assembly members started exploring how change can happen and who is involved in bringing about change.

The materials put together for the assembly are available online – a great resource for anyone interested in learning more. CXC has contributed to the first two weekends:

CXC Policy Director Dave Reay talks about how to reduce our contribution to climate change during the first weekend. During the second weekend the participants watched videos of CXC Programme Manager Dan Barlow talking about government influence on climate action and CXC Science Director Pete Smith setting out the role of diet and land-use in tackling climate change.

Scotland’s Climate Assembly will meet six times, with the last meeting at the start of March 2021. And we are all invited to join the conversation – see how here.

Citizens’ Assemblies have been used to discuss a wide range of questions in many countries. The Climate Assembly UK reported in September 2020, having discussed and agreed different ways the UK can reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. You can read their report here. Climate assemblies have also been run locally.; the Oxford Climate Assembly ran over two weekends in 2019. Read there report here.