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Scotland's Climate Assembly is a citizens' assembly held from 2020 - 2022 to deliberate how Scotland should tackle the climate crisis in an effective and fair way.

The establishment of a citizens’ assembly with a mandate to make climate recommendations to the Scottish Government was embedded in a 2019 amendment to the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009.

The assembly was formed of over 100 members broadly representative of Scotland in terms of age, gender, household income, ethnicity, geography, rurality, disability, and attitude towards climate change.

Assembly Structure
The Climate Change (Scotland) Act first became law in 2009. In 2019, the Act was amended to include new net zero targets, with an amendment to establish a citizens’ assembly on climate change receiving unanimous cross-party support.

It was set out in the Act that the Assembly should be representative of the people of Scotland: it should have two conveners who are independent of the Scottish Ministers and the Scottish Parliament; and before the first meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly, Scottish Ministers should lay before the Scottish Parliament a report on the arrangements for the administration and operation of the Assembly.

In September 2020, ministers published a report outlining the governance arrangements for Scotland’s Climate Assembly, including the role of the secretariat, Stewarding Group and sponsorship of the Assembly by officials within the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Division.

Conveners
The 2019 amendment to the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 required two independent conveners to support the Assembly. Ruth Harvey, the leader of the Iona Community, and Josh Littlejohn MBE, founder of Social Bite, were appointed as co-conveners by the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform.

Stewarding Group
A stewarding group was established within the assembly’s governance structure to provide advice and guidance in all aspects of the assembly, and to “ensure balance and legitimacy in the establishment, conduct and reporting of the assembly”.

The stewarding group is composed of:


 * Former Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change Environment and Land Reform, Scottish Labour Party, Claudia Beamish
 * National Director for the Institute of Directors, Malcolm Cannon
 * MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries, Scottish Conservative Party, Finlay Carson
 * Dairy farmer and distributor, Bryce Cunningham
 * Director of Robert Gordon University’s Energy Transition Institute, Paul de Leeuw
 * Director of Child Poverty Action Group, John Dickie
 * Dean of University of Stirling’s Institute for Advanced Studies, Professor Iain Docherty
 * Academic lead Edinburgh Futures Institute, Dr Olivier Escobar
 * Liam Fowley of the Scottish Youth Parliament
 * Doreen Grove, who leads the Scottish Government’s involvement in the Open Government Partnership
 * The Scottish Government’s Chief Social Researcher, Dr Audrey MacDougall FAcSS
 * Chair of the 2050 Climate Group’s Leaders Network, Kirsten Leggatt
 * MSP for Linlithgow, Scottish National Party, Fiona Hyslop
 * Scottish Liberal Democrats representative, Jenny Marr Dairy farmer
 * President of NFUS 2017-2021, Andrew McCornick
 * Lecturer in environmental change within the Department of Economics at University of Strathclyde, Dr Scott McGrane
 * Policy Chairman of Federation of Small Business, Scotland and chartered architect Andrew McRae
 * Scottish Greens representative, Laura Moodie
 * Support coordinator for Climate Reality Leaders, Jess Pepper
 * Chief executive of the Royal Geographical Society, Mike Robinson
 * Associate Professor at Dublin City University and former senior research fellow on the Irish Citizens’ Assembly, Dr Jane Suiter
 * Chief executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Sally Thomas

Evidence Group
The role of an evidence group was outlined within the Scottish Government report on operation and arrangements of the climate assembly. The group is composed of expert leads tasked to “create a learning pathway which will allow members to make important and credible decisions”.

The evidence group is composed of:


 * Professor Iain Stewart, Director, Sustainable Earth Institute, University of Plymouth
 * Professor Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change, Universities of Manchester (UK), Uppsala (Sweden) and Bergen (Norway)
 * Dr Anna Birney, Director School of System Change, Forum for the Future
 * Dr Kate Crowley, University of Edinburgh
 * Professor Tahseen Jafry, Centre for Climate Justice
 * Daisy Narayanan, formerly at Sustrans
 * Professor Dave Reay, Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, University of Edinburgh
 * Professor Pete Smith, University of Aberdeen, FRS, FRSE, FNA, FEurASc, FRSB
 * John Ward, Grantham Institute and Pengwern Associates

Research Team
The assembly process was supported throughout by researchers from the Scottish Government Social Research Team and Newcastle University. A collaborative approach was taken to ensure independence, impartiality and integrity of research, and to enable robust high quality research.

The research team was composed of:


 * Dr Nadine Andrews, Principal Research Officer at the Scottish Government
 * Dr Nick Bland, the Research Adviser to the Local Governance Review at the Scottish Government
 * Dr Evelyn Bowes, Principal Research Officer at the Scottish Government
 * Dr Stephen Elstub, a Reader in British Politics at Newcastle University
 * Barnaby King, a researcher at the Scottish Government
 * Ruth Mattock and Jessamyn Briers who were on the Environmental Placement Programme with Scotland's Climate Assembly

Remit
The Climate Change Act set out that the assembly should consider how to prevent or minimise, or remedy or mitigate the effects of, climate change, and it should make recommendations on measures proposed to achieve the emissions reduction targets. It gave the assembly a mandate to make recommendations to the Scottish Government.

To fulfil their remit, assembly members considered evidence from a broad range of perspectives in order to answer the question “How should Scotland change to tackle the climate emergency in an effective and fair way?” In all more than 100 speakers presented evidence to the Assembly.

Scotland’s Climate Assembly was originally required to report to the Scottish Parliament and Ministers by 28 February 2021. However, the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Act of 2020 further amended the Climate Change Act to require reporting as soon as practicable after that date if the Assembly was delayed for a reason relating to Coronavirus.

Member Recruitment
The process for selecting members began with inviting people from around Scotland to apply using a postal civic lottery. Respondents from randomly selected households were asked to complete a form that helped select members to ensure a broad representation of the country in terms of age, gender, household income, ethnicity, geography, rurality, disability, and attitude towards climate change.

The invitation letter was sent to 20,000 randomly selected households, with adjustments made to correct “typical skewing towards higher socio-economic groups.”

Just over 100 members broadly representative of Scotland’s population in terms of age, household income, ethnicity, gender, attitudes towards climate change, and rurality were selected to become members.

Children’s Assembly
Scotland’s Climate Assembly established a world first among such citizen bodies by involving children in the Assembly’s work, with over 100 children across the country taking part. The assembly’s recommendations were supported by 41 calls to action from the members of Children’s Parliaments’ own climate investigation.

Throughout the assembly, members received video updates from the Children’s Parliament investigation.

Assembly Agenda
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Scotland’s Climate Assembly took place online for its entire duration. Originally scheduled to meet for six weekends between November 2020 and March 2021, with the option of an additional weekend available, the assembly was extended when members voted to “request additional time for learning and deliberations” over a seventh weekend.

Pre-engagement
Before the assembly started meeting, a public engagement exercise was conducted in order to include the views of wider society. The public was invited to make suggestions regarding what they thought the Assembly should discuss, who should speak at the Assembly, and their ideas about how Scotland should reach net zero targets.

Themes identified at the pre-engagement stage guided the selection of speakers and organisation of evidence throughout the assembly process. A Pre-engagement Evidence Summary was published that outlines which suggestions were incorporated into the assembly.

Weekend 1
Weekend 1 took place on Saturday 7 November and Sunday 8 November 2020 and gave assembly members an introduction to Climate Change and an insight into barriers to tackling Climate Change.

Speakers answered members’ questions on Climate Change throughout the session and presented evidence on how Scotland can mitigate climate change by reducing its emissions. Members also received the first of four video updates from the Children’s Parliament investigation.

Members were introduced to the concept of society-wide systems change, and encouraged to consider a systems change approach through the assembly process.

Weekend 2
On Weekend 2, which took place on Saturday 12 December and Sunday 13 December 2020, assembly members started learning about where climate emissions come from, how they can be reduced, and methods of reducing the impact of climate change in Scotland. Members received a second update from the Children’s Parliament’s climate investigation.

On the second day of the session, members agreed on how they would define ‘fairness’ for the purpose of the assembly’s core question: “"How should Scotland change to tackle the climate emergency in a fair and effective way?"

Weekends 3 and 4
Over weekends 3 and 4 which took place on 9-10 January and 23-24 January 2021, members were divided into three separate work streams of diet and lifestyle, homes and communities, and work and travel to allow more in-depth discussion of the topics.

The separate groups were presented evidence by informants and advocates. Informants set the context for each challenge and explained the range of views that existed on each topic, while advocates presented personal opinions, or opinions of the organisations they worked for.

Weekend 5
During Weekend 5, which took place on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 February 2021, members began the process of prioritising the recommendations they had been shaping in separate work streams over the previous two weekends.

With the help of expert leads who were rotating through breakout rooms to answer members’ questions, members considered their proposed recommendations in the context of existing initiatives contained in a recent Scottish Government update to its Climate Change Plan 2018 - 2031.

Members received a third update on the Children’s Parliament’s climate investigation.

Weekend 6
Weekend 6 took place on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 March 2021, and saw members return as the full assembly after being separated into work streams over weekends 3, 4, and 5. The weekend focussed on members sharing their respective groups’ proposed recommendations with the rest of the assembly, and voting on the assembly’s goals and statement of ambition.

On Sunday, members received their fourth of a four-part series of updates from the Children's Parliament’s climate investigation.

Weekend 7
The assembly regrouped for its seventh weekend on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 March 2021. Members focused on addressing any gaps within their proposals and finalised overarching statements of ambition to frame their recommendations.

Members voted on the assembly’s goals between Weekends 6 and 7, and voted on recommendations after Weekend 7.

Weekend 8
Members have agreed to meet for an eighth weekend in February 2022 to determine the assembly’s next steps following on from the official Scottish Government response due in December 2021.

Recommendations
In March 2021, the Assembly published its goals and statement of ambition in an interim report, announcing that “We all – governments, businesses, communities and individuals – have the responsibility to implement change and achieve the goals we have outlined, while ensuring that no one is left behind.”

Scotland’s Climate Assembly officially submitted its full Recommendations for Action report to the Scottish Parliament on 23 June 2021. The report includes 81 recommendations agreed on by consensus that are designed to achieve 16 key goals spanning a wide range of policy areas.

Professor Dave Reay of University of Edinburgh, who had previously presented to the assembly as an expert lead, described the report as “a clarion call for climate action right across Scotland.”

Engagement
Since publishing its report, Scotland’s Climate Assembly has engaged with stakeholders from across society in Scotland on its recommendations.

The assembly partnered with organisations such as Scotland’s Rural College to organise a number of sectoral events in which experts and academics put assembly recommendations into context for attendees interested in key sectors relevant to climate change in Scotland, such as land and diet, housing, and transport.

Members engaged with Scottish Government ministers ahead of the government’s official response to the assembly’s recommendations. Across nine meetings occurring online between August and December 2021, members met nine Cabinet Secretaries and eleven Ministers with responsibility across the full range of policy areas relevant to the assembly’s recommendations.

Supported by expert leads who had previously provided evidence to the assembly, members had the opportunity to engage Ministers in open conversation and to exchange views on specific recommendations.

Scotland’s Climate Assembly members participated in events at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Members participated in an event chaired by Kevin Anderson discussing the ways citizens’ assemblies can affect climate action with representatives of the Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat, the Global Assembly, and Glasgow Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Emergency.

Members from both Scotland’s Climate Assembly and Children’s Parliament participated in an event in which they asked questions of a panel of Government ministers consisting of Scotland’s Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants' Rights, Patrick Harvie, Finland’s Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Krista Mikkonen, Lithuania’s Minister of Environment Simonas Gentvilas, and Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change Patricia Fuller.

Ten days prior to COP26, the assembly launched Scotland’s Civic Charter on Climate, a public statement from respected individuals and organisations across Scottish society highlighting the support across Scotland for the assembly’s recommendations.