After starting in Birmingham, face-to-face, in January and ending up in a very different world, online, in mid-May, the UK Climate Assembly has now finished its deliberations, two months later than anticipated due to the impact of COVID-19.
Involve decided to replace the final (fourth) weekend of face-to-face deliberations, scheduled for late March, with 3 x 2-hour sessions for 3 weekends (9 online sessions), on the basis that it is harder to spend long periods of time online (find out if the participants liked it!). It contrasts with the approach taken by Australian practitioner Susanna Haas Lyons, who ran an online assembly with much longer days, and says in this podcast that seven hours would be ideal: obviously, online assemblies are going to be evolving rapidly over the next few months as practitioners share their experiences!
Sortition Foundation is proud to have been involved, recruiting a diverse and representative 110-member panel, which deliberated on how best to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.