World Wide Views on Climate Change UK

Whilst leaders at the recent United Nations Conference on Climate Change stressed the urgency in reaching a global agreement on climate change, ultimately very little was actually achieved. The final document recognises the scientific necessity of keeping global temperature rises to no more than 2°C, but contains no tangible commitments to reduce emissions in achieving this.

However, following the despair of the great Copenhagen cop-out, there is some good news; while the politician’s continue to argue and deliberate over what should, and plausibly, could be done, a number of organizations, companies and individual citizens have each been doing their bit in the battle against climate change.

Here at Involve we have received a number of requests from attendees at the event in Kettering enquiring about the ways and means they can continue to do their bit. Its great news that so many of you have remained interested and engaged!

We did make efforts to hold conversations between participants and representatives from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) but ultimately these fell through. However if people are still keen to do their bit there are a number of ways to do so at the personal, local and national level.

Personal level – contributing to 10/10. 10:10 is an ambitious project aimed at uniting every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together we can achieve a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions in 2010. Sign up to the 10/10 campaign and find out ways you personally can contribute carbon reductions this year

Local/National Level – organisations such as ‘The Campaign against Climate Change’ run a number of campaigns on issues around climate change in addition to providing links to local organizations throughout the country where you can find climate change groups in your local area to get involved with.

If you would like more information on ways to get involved both nationally and in your area please contact omar@involve.org.uk

The World Wide Views on Climate Change global conference and Kettering’s involvement is continuing to give the public a voice in the build up to the decisions being made at the COP15 summit. Channel 4 News brought four citizens of Kettering together with four from Rio who attended the WWViews global conference to debate who should be doing what for whom to battle the spiralling effects of our warming world.

Participants agreed that the COP15 summit is crucial to combatting Climate Change. The discussion did however raise contrasting barriers that the two countries face. It was highlighted that there is not the same ‘environmental awareness’ in Brazil as there is in the UK at present. In addition the difficulties the incredibly poor of Brazil have in making a difference was touched on; where population control is much more extreme an issue, and where green farming seems like a distant ideal.

Consensus came when the participants discussed the fact that individual effort can effect change and how continued education on the subject will be a key contributor to behaviour change.

To read the article and watch the video clip, please click here

Please download the WWViews International Policy Report Here

Results from the first-ever global citizens’ consultation on climate change are clear: Citizens from all parts of the world mandate their politicians to take fast and strong action at COP15.

The results are remarkably consistent across national income groups and geographical regions. The participating citizens voted on alternative answers to 12 predefined questions and produced a large number of recommendations phrased in their own wordings. Synthesizing these results, we can deduce nine clear Policy Recommendations from the citizens.

The recommendations are:
1. Make a deal at COP15
2. Keep the temperature increase below 2 degrees
3. Annex 1 countries should reduce emissions with 25-40 % or more by 2020
4. Fast-growing economies should also reduce emissions by 2020
5. Low-income developing countries should limit emissions
6. Give high priority to an international financial mechanism
7. Punish non-complying countries
8. Make technology available to everyone
9. Strengthen or supplement international institutions

WWViews results can be studied in detail at www.wwviews.org

On the 25th October Involve ran a deliberative process about climate change with 15 members of the UK Youth Climate Coalition. The exercise examined the visions for the future of this selection of the UK’s youth representatives going to the COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

The group were asked what they would like the world to look like in 2030. After working through a number of discussions three themes were prioritised as the core areas for effecting change with regards to the to the climate agenda. These were Global Justice, a Green Economy and Stronger Communities. The group explained that they prioritised these particular remits, as by moving towards more of a green focus on these issues the foundations would be set for then sustainable agriculture, energy and transport for example to become a reality. The group then took time to critically self-examine how these aims could realistically be achieved.

The results from this session will be analysed in full in a policy report on citizen deliberation and its influences that will be released in the build up to the COP15 summit. Please watch this space…

After the World Wide Views on Climate Change global Conference, Philip Hollobone MP for Kettering was interested to learn more about the views of his constituency on this important issue. A great, and forward thinking step towards the voices of the public being listened to by decision makers.

Kettering citizen Ray Maylin travelled down to London on Tuesday 27th October to speak to his Mr. Hollobone about Climate Change. After discussing with Mr. Hollobone his position on climate issues, and the decisions that are being made at Copenhagen the pair along with Edward Andersson of Involve went for a tour of the House of Commons. Interestingly enough, Ray noticed a lack of double-glazing in the building. Insulation being one of the best ways to increase energy efficiency and combat the challenges of climate change at the local level.

Is this an apt depiction of the issues we are facing worldwide? Is it easy enough to talk about climate change and energy efficiencies, and their importance without actually putting them into practice? And having strong, positive action at Copenhagen? Possibly not, but it did get us at Involve as well as Ray thinking.

The second report from the citizen’s deliberation on climate change has now been published. This report analyses the views of informed citizens in Kettering and in 43 other towns on 6 continents. None of the people taking part in the deliberation had a professional connection to the debate and few had a deep understanding of the debate prior to the event.

This report presents the views of the citizens and analyses the UK government’s stated position in the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference happening in Copenhagen in December in this light.

In summary, the report’s findings include:

1. it is possible to engage the public in complex debates about climate change; Kettering demonstrates that it can be enjoyable and most importantly, people want their voices heard;

2. once provided with information and space to deliberate, a larger majority wants the government to move further than its current commitments than polling of uninformed members of the public would suggest ;

3. any deal in Copenhagen must be equitable for least developed countries;

4. despite wanting urgent, large scale action by government on climate change, there is considerable scepticism about how the government will do this and an unwillingness to pay additional costs; and

5. governments pushing for weaker targets in Copenhagen are working against the wishes of their citizens. Informed publics across the world believe that the problem of climate change is urgent and want they large scale action to deal with it

The report recommends that the UK government:
1. makes more ambitious cuts to carbon emissions in its response to climate change;

2. develops and maintains a long term campaign to provide more, accessible information to the public including leaflets to all households, public information adverts on the television and more imaginative use of the internet; and

3. engages the British public at local and national level in a dialogue about how society reaches the ambitious carbon reduction targets the public wants

Simon Burall
Director of Involve

Channel 4 News reports on Kettering’s climate change verdict – how the people of Kettering were asked how green they are ahead of the Copenhagen conference.

To read more of the high profile piece please click here.

World Wide Views reported on Channel 4 News here:

Will Day, Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission endorses theWWViews on Climate Change process:

Numbers are only part of the story -

Things have been very busy at the Involve offices since the World Wide Views Event last week. We are working on the official event report, which should be ready shortly. We’ve been busy poring over the voting results from the UK event and it makes for fascinating reading. On most issues it seems that the majority of UK participants agrees with the Government’s tough stance; in many cases the UK participants want to go even further in terms of emission reductions and penalties for countries that don’t live up to their commitments.

One of the big challenges we face is to convey the energy in the room to others who weren’t there. A report can’t really capture the spirit of the event, and neither can the numbers on their own. That’s why it is great that a number of different media outlets covered the event, including Radio 5 Live and the World Service. Unfortunately most of this coverage is time limited access, but you can still check out the coverage in the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph.

I’m about to go to Copenhagen for a two day session where we will draft up the global policy report. Taking 38 event reports, each of them as rich and complex as the one from Kettering and creating a report to do justice to them all is a big responsibility. One way of seeing if you agree with our conclusions is to go onto the WWviews.org site and compare the results of the UK to other countries.

I’ll post an update once the policy workshop is done to let you know what the results were.

The official website of COP15, the UN climate change conference in December, has reported the findings from the WWV process.

The global results are now available. At first reading they appear to broadly support the views of citizens in Kettering. We’ll bring you more in-depth analysis over the coming days.

Finally, here are today’s results:

It’s been a long, productive, successful day!

In the richness of the discussion and the figures from the voting in Kettering, three things stand out for me.

Firstly, the majority of people in the room want urgent action on climate change, and they are expecting our leaders to make a firm deal in Copenhagen at Christmas.

But they don’t want a deal at any cost. The voting shows that people don’t want the poorer countries of the world to bear the same cost as richer countries. Global equity is as important to a majority of people in Kettering as is urgent action on carbon dioxide emissions.

It has been a really long day. But people have stuck it out and remain engaged; in fact, the energy in the room is increasing not decreasing right now. The final message I take from today, the most important from Involve’s perspective, is that people want to be heard. They are prepared to give up their Saturday to discuss complex and abstract issues. They want to learn and they want to be involved in decisions.

Governments of the world take note, your citizens want to talk to you.

We’ve been posting the results from the citizens votes all afternoon and have now also started comparing them to the results that have come in from timezones east of Kettering; China, Australia and Tokyo for example.

But the bald numbers hide the huge richness of debate that has gone on at the 15 tables here in our dark conference room on the edge of the town.

There are people here who came knowing quite a lot, but there are also people who knew very little. However, veryone has engaged and brought their own experiences to it.

People have talked about the small steps they are taking in their own lives to cut their carbon emissions; and sharing information about technology to do so. Others are sharing their fears about what climate change means for them. Others remain sceptical of the debate, the cost to them and to the country. But all are still here after 6 hours with minimal breaks.

What is striking is that the majority want urgent action. In addition, the majority also believe that the richer countries should bear most of the cost. We are now asking them to develop recommendations for the governments going to Copenhagen. But in Kettering, and around the world it is clear that citizens are desperate to be heard by our leaders.

Will they listen?

Here are the results of the fourth thematic session, “The Economy of Technology and Adaptation.”

These are complex questions and opinions are varied. Only 45% think there should be no regulation of fossil fuels prices, while 79% think a global financial system should be installed to aid developing countries. You can compare these results with the ones in other countries here as they come up.

The results are in for the emission reduction rates!

72% say that short term emission reduction by developed countries should be between 25 and 40%. In keeping with this, participants felt that developing and lower income countries should only reduce their emissions based on what they emit.

I wonder with this is consistent with the world view?!?

Hello from Kettering!

[Click on picture to enlarge]

Kettering citizens are grappling with whether the reduction target for emissions should be in the short term for both developing and developed countries.

Punishment for missing targets was another complex issue discussed. Over half of participants say that countries exceeding the agreed emissions targets should be punished and forced to pay a penalty equal to any benefit received.

More results soon….

We just had a link up via Skype with World Wide Views Sweden, who were about to start their third round of questions. We will latter pass the baton to the USA.

In the meantime, here’s the results to the first two rounds of questions:

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the slides.

At the end of the day we will upload the final outcome to our Results page.

You can also compare the results in the UK with those in other parts of the world here.