Extinction Rebellion demands a Citizen’s Assembly: The Rising of Democracy

Extinction Rebellion first emerged from a network that promotes fundamental changes of our political, social and economic system that perpetuates the climate and ecological emergency. Social injustice has become a by-product of the current Governments business as usual policies.

Scientist has warned of a possible societal collapse that includes mass species extinction and mass homo sapiens death caused by an exponential growth in global pollution. Therefore, rapid and robust action should be taken to halt the crisis as time is running out.

Extinction Rebellion key demands are:

Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.

Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.

Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizen’s Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

As the climate and ecological debate continues to dominate environmental activist agenda, Extinction Rebellion third demand of a Citizen Assembly is gathering more attention amongst PM’s, the general public and the media in recent months. For some this model of public engagement is entirely new, but the history extends to the 1970’s, and has been used around the world to bring together representative groups of the public to deliberate controversial and complex issues such as the climate and ecological emergency.

Countries such as Canada, Australia, Belgium and Ireland have used citizen assemblies to give decisions-makers access to informed and considered views of the public which played a key role in changes to abortion and gay marriages in Ireland recently.

Citizens assemblies often use stratified random sampling to ensure members are representative of the public on key demographics and attitudinal criteria such as age, gender, ethnicity, region and social class (www.investopedia.com). Citizens assemblies are designed to avoid any systematic imbalances to allow participants to participate equally.

There are three stages in the model; learning, consultation and decision making. The learning stage is probably the most important phase, as it is providing the participants the vital information that is scientific, accessible, balanced and comprehensive. Participants are given sufficient time and resources to review and deliberate the information given to guide their decision making. It is imperative citizen assembly are balanced , organiser often set up an advisory board comprising of independent experts and campaigners from both sides of the issue to vet the information given to participants.

Campaigners and experts may decide to run a public consultation to understand what the broader public thinks about the issue. Deliberative processes emphasise the importance of reflection and informed discussion in policy-making, this will allow a better understanding of the trade-offs inherent in political decisions. Generally, assembly members will make recommendations to government or parliament at the end of the third phase. If the recommendations are taken up, they can involve the wider public through means such as a referendum, but it is usually up to the elected politicians whether or not to follow the assembly’s recommendations.

Citizen assemblies are a great tool to bring together a representative sample of the population and their informed and considered input to policy-making; which will help to build a consensus between people with different views. It is an aspect of a deliberative democracy process through which citizens can engage in an open, respectful and informed discussion.

Citizens’ assemblies emphasise two important areas of democracy: the participation of ordinary citizens in decision-making and members to engage in complex policy matters. It is a model to build trust between the politicians and public to strengthen and supplement representative democracy. It gives politicians an insight into informed public perspective on complex policy issues and encourages governments to find a solution where they have reached an impasse or a situation is politically difficult.

Extinction Rebellion third demand for Citizen Assembly gives a powerful voice to the most marginalised in society in a world where politics is often characterised by division. We are confronted with a climate and ecological emergency and a citizen assembly might be the solution to engage politicians and the general public on the most complex and serious issue facing mankind today.

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