GREEN HOUSE CONFERENCE 14th September 2019 CLIMATE EMERGENCY - RAISING THE AMBITION WIDENING THE COALITION: DEMOCRACY AND CLIMATE EMERGENCY - CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLIES AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

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Ian Christie

Centre for Environment and Sustainability Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity University of Surrey

Photos: I Christie unless other source given

• The Two Emergencies • The hypercomplex cluster of

CAPs • Fixing Climate via Fixing

Democracy? • The promise of Deliberative

Democracy and Citizens’ Engagement

• Problems and preconditions for wider engagement in a damaged political ecology

• Widening participation: citizens’ forums and beyond

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What I’ll cover

Deliberating at the Surrey Climate Commission, June 2019

“We’re winning too slowly. If we can only achieve incremental progress when large-scale change is needed, we lose. If we set large-scale action in motion, but only after such a prolonged fight that it’s no longer possible to meet the curve ahead of us, we fail. Indeed, winning too slowly is the same thing as losing.” Alex Steffen, The Nearly Now blog, Dec.2017: https://thenearlynow.com/the-real-politics-of-the-planetary-crisis-216229324deb

“Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t. That is as black or white as it gets. There are no grey areas when it comes to survival. We all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations. Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.” Greta Thunberg, speech at Davos WEF 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate

“Like it or not, we live in an age of stubbornly unsustainable policies pursued by stubbornly interest-bound political and economic institutions underwritten by stubbornly private-market fundamentalists who stubbornly privilege wealth over equality and profit over sustainability”. Ben Barber, Cool Cities (2017)

“We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.” Jean-Claude Juncker, on the Eurozone crisis.

Thoughts for the day: the 2 Emergencies

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There’s a CLIMATE EMERGENCY

Image source: DN-SE

Net Zero T

Committee on Climate ChangeMay 2019

TIM JACKSON

The Heat Is On

Source: Global Carbon Project, 2018

Tim Jackson in Zero Carbon Sooner (CUSP, 2019): “Policy must specify both a target date and an emissions pathway. For a linear reduction pathway not to exceed the carbon budget the target year would have to be 2025. Nonlinear pathways, such as those with constant percentage reduction rates, have a higher chance of remaining within the available budget provided that the reduction starts early enough and the reduction rate is high enough. It is notable that reduction rates high enough both to lead to zero carbon (on a consumption basis) by 2050 and to remain within the carbon budget require absolute reductions of more than 95% of carbon emissions as early as 2030. On this basis, the paper argues in favour of setting a UK target for net zero carbon emissions by 2030 or earlier, with a maximum of 5% emissions addressed through negative emission technologies.” (My emphasis.)

The heat is on

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There’s a DEMOCRACY EMERGENCY

Image source: DN-SE

Divided Britain?Polarisation and fragmentation trends in the UK

%REE\�'XƩ\Kirstie HewlettJulian McCraeJohn Hall September 2019

THE POLICY INSTITUTE

The Heat is On

“The upsurge of economic nationalism and anti-scientific populism have created an unsettling context in which climate change must be thought about and acted on. So while for most people who study the subject, the science of climate change is complex but clear enough not to paralyse us, and the economics of the great energy transformation away from fossil fuels is compelling, the politics remain painfully and perilously difficult: we have the technology of the gods and the politics of narcissistic children.”

Robert Hutchison, This Moment, Green House: London, 2017 http://www.greenhousethinktank.org/uploads/4/8/3/2/48324387/this_moment_final.pdf

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At the intersection of the 2 Emergencies

“DISENGAGED | CAUTIOUS” parties either have no position on climate change or attribute little importance to the problem.

This attitude might be linked to their back-ground as single-issue parties, the relative lack of focus on climate change in respec-tive domestic public debates or to their own internal division. From our sample, 11 right-wing populist parties belong to this type, for example the the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the far-right Czech Freedom and Direct Democ-racy, the Italian Lega and the Greek Golden Dawn party – the last of which has a “Green Wing” which organises reforestation activ-ities and firefighting, but the party does not mention climate change in its communi-cations. In Lithuania, the Order and Justice party addresses energy prices, but does not specify its stance on climate change.

The Polish PiS, Europe’s “pro-coal party”, is known for a few ambiguous statements

by its leaders and its frequent opposition to climate policies, but does not have an overt-ly sceptical position on climate science.

Parties of this variety often emphasise the uncertainty around the impacts of emis-sions in the atmosphere and the effects of climate policy. For example, the Norwe-gian Progress Party stated that “Earth’s cli-mate changes over time, and we know too little about what affects these changes.” The French National Rally also falls into this category, with its sceptical utterances about whether or to what extent humans contrib-ute to climate change, while simultaneous-ly promoting ambitious visions of national environmental action by means of the par-ty’s New Ecology movement24 in particular, as well as renewable energy deployment.

© adelphi 2019. Based on an analysis of 21 official political party programmes, statements from party leaders, spokespersons, press releases, and other news sources.

Where right-wing populists stand on climate change science

Austria Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs / Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ)25 Denmark Dansk Folkeparti / Danish People’s Party (DF)26

Estonia Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond / Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE)Germany Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany (AfD)Great Britain United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)Netherlands Partij voor de Vrijheid / Party for Freedom (PVV)Sweden Sverigedemokraterna / Sweden Democrats (SD)

Czech Republic Svoboda a přímá demokracie – Tomio Okamura / Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD)France National Rally (former National Front) (RN)Greece Chrysi Avgi / Golden Dawn (XA)Italy Lega Nord (Lega)Lithuania Tvarka ir teisingumas / Order and Justice (TT)Norway Progress Party (PP)Belgium Vlaams Belang / Flemish Interest (VB)Bulgaria Bulgarsko Natsionalno Dvizhenie / Bulgarian National Movement (VMRO)Poland Prawo i Sprawiedliwość / Law and Justice (PiS)Slovakia Slovenská národná strana / Slovak National Party (SNS)Switzerland Schweizerische Volkspartei / Swiss People’s Party (SVP)

Finland Perussuomalaiset / Finns Party (PS) Hungary FideszLatvia Nacionālā Apvienība / National Alliance (NA)

Denialist | Skeptical

Disengaged | Cautious

Affirmative

FIG 3

Type 2

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© 2019 adelphi consult GmbHBerlin, 26 .02. 2019

AuthorsStella Schaller and Alexander Carius

Design & CoverSebastian Vollmarvividshapes.com

PrinterH. Heenemann GmbH & Co. KGBessemerstraße 83, 12103 Berlin

DisclaimerThe analysis, results and recommendations in this paper represent the opinion of the authors and are not necessarily representative of the position of any of the organisations listed above. For the texts in this publication, adelphi grants a license under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. You may reproduce and share the licensed materi-al if you name adelphi as follows: “© adelphi, CC-BY ND 4.0”. Photographs and graphics are not covered by this license. In case of doubt please contact adelphi prior to reusing the material.

Publisheradelphi consult GmbH Alt-Moabit 91, 10559 Berlin P: +49 (030) 89 000 68-0F: +49 (030) 89 000 68-10office@adelphi.de www.adelphi.de

Suggested CitationSchaller, Stella and Alexander Carius (2019): Convenient Truths: Mapping climate agendas of right-wing populist parties in Europe Berlin: adelphi.

AcknowledgementsWe wish to thank Katarina Schulz for her valuable support in collecting qualitative and quanti-tative data with utmost care, translating statements from numerous languages, providing back-ground information and for her help throughout the analysis. We also thank Johannes Ackva, who provided succinct comments and expertise that greatly improved the research, and for his support in interpreting the data results. Special thanks go to Christopher Stolzenberg, Stephan Wolters, Raffaele Piria, Nils Simon, Tilman Eichstädt, Adrian Foong, Lucas Plummer, Olivia Davis, and Dennis Tänzler for providing feedback on the drafts and for constructive suggestions during the planning and development of this research.

IMPRINT

Source:

Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 24th October 2018, ‘The shameful inaction over climate change’. “The sane choice must surely to be to preserve the planet we have. Yet doing that…requires co-operative effort on a planetary scale…This is a scale of challenge human beings have historically only met in times of war, and then only against each other.”

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A hyper-complex cluster of Collective Action Problems (CAPs)

Risk of tragedy of commons in absence of cooperation in a rule-based system Tragedy of the horizon - short-term vs long-term perspective Collective Action Problems at every scale, global to local CAPs and silence

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A Hyper-complex cluster of Collective Action Problems (CAPs)

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A quiet Emergency

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A quiet kind of Emergency

CUSP Fellow Rebecca Willis on UK parliamentarians• PhD research on why MPs don’t act urgently on climate or even

discuss it… • “…one message has emerged with striking clarity: the

electorate are not asking their representatives to act. In the words of one of my interviewees, ‘Voters don’t ask about it. We go out and knock on doors, and we speak to people, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been asked about climate change, ever.’

• “This is a pretty fundamental dilemma for politicians. Most of them know what needs to be done. Yet they get their mandate from voters, who are not asking them to do anything at all. How can they square this circle?”

• Source: https://greenallianceblog.org.uk/2018/02/09/theres-no-political-pressure-to-act-on-climate-so-how-are-mps-responding/

But - are we at a Tipping Point? : - Unignorability: the pile-up of scientific evidence and the arrival of widespread experience of extreme weather linked to global heating - New political coalitions for action: cities, states, pro-sustainability businesses and networks, Green New Deal…and including parts of the Right - Business perception of systemic risk: insurance, supply chains, lawsuits - The new wave of protest and mobilisation:

- Greta Thunberg and the school strikes - Extinction Rebellion - Sunrise - Emergency declarations: UK, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, cities and regions

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Recognising Climate Emergency

TIM JACKSON

Recognising Democratic Emergency - are we at a Tipping Point? : - Unignorability: the pile-up of evidence of public disaffection and disengagement from parties and voting Unignorability: the development of polarisation and nativist populism - Unignorability: corrosion of democratic norms and institutions in USA, UK, rest of EU - ‘Sophisticated state failure’: inability to discuss, let alone take action, on long-range risks (climate, biodiversity, ageing and care etc)

The convergence of Emergencies

We need to face up to the Climate Emergency via democratic means… But our democracies have a hard time dealing with Collective Action Problems… Climate Disruption is a planetary CAP… Democracies are struggling with climate politics… Have we time to fix democracy so that we create a political culture equipped for climate action? Can we tackle the 2 Emergencies together?

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The hope in deliberation - towards ecological democracy? See CUSP’s work

CUSP CENTRE FOR THE UNDERSTANDING OF

SUSTAINABLE PROSPER I T Y

CUSPAn ESRC Research Centre

Working Paper SeriesISSN: 2397-8341

SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY AND DEMOCRACY—A RESEARCH AGENDAMarit Hammond and Graham Smithwith Joost de Moor, Philip Catney, and Brian Doherty

November 2017

Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable ProsperityWorking Paper No 8

Jason Woodside Mural, Photo derivative of Elvert Barnes / Flickr (CC-BY-SA 2.0 )

www.cusp.ac.uk

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Marit Hammond and Graham Smith for CUSP

Sustainable Prosperity and Democracy— A Research Agenda

“…we explore new institutional and societal spaces that can revitalise democracy, ameliorating existing constraints and infusing sustainability politics with new ways of thinking. In particular we highlight the potential promise of participatory and deliberative innovations, prefigurative politics, reform of established structures and institutions, and deliberative systems and cultural change. ” https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/p/no08/

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Simon Caney for CUSP

“My argument in this essay has been that existing political systems are resolutely focused on the short-term and that this both harms current generations and is leading us to bequeath a deeply unfair and dysfunctional world to our descendants. To address this, we need to re-imagine ways of organising our political life to make the ‘future’ salient and visible, to jolt us out of our fixation on the present, and to induce us to look ahead and give the ‘future’ its due. Only in this way do we stand a chance of protecting our long-term interests and honouring our responsibilities to future generations.” https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/m/m1-11/

Democratic Reform, Intergenerational Justice and the Challenges of the Long-Term

The hope in Deliberative Democracy

• Renewal of democracy via institutional and cultural change

• Re-engaging people in debate and decision-making

• Widening access and engagement • Appropriate to generating a culture

of attention to the longer term? • Potential to reduce polarisation and

increase awareness of complexities of decisions

• Potential to enhance legitimacy of and trust in democratic institutions

• Potential to increase public engagement in civic activities

• Permission to lead: building consensus behind tough policy choices

Deliberation on climate action - Coventry Cathedral, 2015

The hope in Deliberative Democracy

• UK plan for a Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Action, coordinated by Parliamentary Select Committees

• Examples of Citizens’ Assemblies across the UK in wake of XR and school strikes

• Signs of a new movement for radical constitutional reform in UK

• Experiments in deliberative democracy linked to sustainability and intergenerational justice

• See Welsh Government, Wellbeing of Future Generations Act

• See Our Future Wales process • See Foundation for Democracy and

Sustainable Development www.fdsd.org.uk

The hope in Deliberative Democracy

• Leeds Climate Commission: Big Climate Conversation process

• Camden Council • New Surrey Climate Commission:

plans for Citizens’ Forum process

• Stockholm Environmental Institute (2019): • “Increased public

participation builds a more engaged citizenry, increases the legitimacy of decisions, and helps ensure that policy-makers have valuable local knowledge.”

•But…

Problems and Preconditions for widening engagement

Divided Britain?Polarisation and fragmentation trends in the UK

%REE\�'XƩ\Kirstie HewlettJulian McCraeJohn Hall September 2019

THE POLICY INSTITUTE

Renewal also has to take into account how new institutions are related to existing ones and the wider political ecology: - media - representative systems - direct democracy - political culture: the web of assumptions, habits, prejudices, information sources, associations and myths we live with - trust, confidence in other institutions - conflict and divisive interests

Hansard Society

“Like it or not, we live in an age of stubbornly unsustainable policies pursued by stubbornly interest-bound political and economic institutions underwritten by stubbornly private-market fundamentalists who stubbornly privilege wealth over equality and profit over sustainability”. Benjamin Barber, Cool Cities (2017)

The influence of Neoliberalism

Photo source: http://benjaminbarber.org/See him on TED http://benjaminbarber.org/ted-talk-with-dr-benjamin-barber/

Media vs deliberation

26 Divided Britain? | September 2019

• In-group identification based on a shared opinion.

• Differentiation of the in-group from the out-group,

which can lead to in-group favourability and out-group

denigration.

• Evaluative bias in perceptions of the world and in

decision-making.

2.3. Political-class versus electorate polarisationIn addition to distinguishing between issue and affective polarisation, it is important to recognise that both can act

at different levels of society, with a particularly important distinction made between polarisation at a political-class

or general-electorate level. The main focus for analysis

of the former tends to be political leaders. Given that the

majority of this literature comes from the US, political-

class polarisation is often measured through the attitudes

and behaviours of members of the Senate or House of

Representatives. However, researchers such as Morris

Fiorina also extend this analysis to donors and activists.28

These distinctions are important because, as we’ll see in the

evidence from the US, polarisation can exist independently

at each of these levels – and, more than that, one can

influence the other, even though the direction and nature of these influences are often disputed.

Affective polarisation

IDENTIFICATION

with an “in-group” based on shared opinions, values

and beliefs

DIFFERENTIATION

of in-group from out-group that leads to favourability and

denigraion

PERCEPTION BIAS

that leads to different views of the world and influences

decisions

FIGURE 3: ELEMENTS OF AFFECTIVE POLARISATION

Source: Adapted from Hobolt, Leeper and Tilley (2018), ‘Divided By The Vote’.

Source: KCL, Divided Britain? report, Sept. 2019

Preconditions for effective processes such as Citizens’ Juries / Assemblies: Care in selection of membership - random selection or targeted? Clarity about purpose Clarity about question(s) to be tackled Payment for engagement Time - enough time to explore the complexity of the issues at stake Time - be mindful of parenting/caring demands, household timetables Experts should be involved in deliberation: time and resources to enable good dialogue between citizen participants and experts. Professional facilitation A governing or steering body for advice and oversight? Budgets for participative processes Training for facilitators and process designers Standard-setting Evaluation and learning

Ensuring Deliberative Engagement lives up to its promise for climate action and democratic renewal

Green Alliance policy insightJuly 2019

Power to the people Shaping UK climate policy through deliberative democracy

Challenges for widening engagement via Deliberative Processes: How does deliberative democracy relate to representative democracy? Grafting DP on to unreformed representative system is a sticking plaster Councillors and MPs’ perceptions and support Arnstein’s Ladder: align expectations Avoid disappointed expectations: Neighbourhood Planning (see University of Reading research programme) Avoid disappointed expectations: citizens need to see supportive action from Government, business and other authorities - and evidence of the importance of the issue in everyday life

Ensuring Deliberative Engagement lives up to its promise for climate action and democratic renewal

Green Alliance policy insightJuly 2019

Power to the people Shaping UK climate policy through deliberative democracy

Learning to be Citizens in the C21st- Deliberative processes need to be normalised and engagement in them widened: - local and regional planning - local Climate Commissions - schools, universities - healthcare (NHS SD Unit) - faith communities (new SPIRE initiative by Prof. Chris Rapley) - consumption (see IKEA’s Live Lagom programme of engagement with consumers as citizens)

Ensuring Deliberative Engagement lives up to its promise for climate action and democratic renewal

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Worth reading

Berry, L. et al (2019), Making space: how public participation shapes environmental decision-making, Stockholm Environmental Institute, Seattle Brodie, E. et al (2011), Pathways through Participation: what creates and sustains active citizenship?, NCVO/IVR/Involve, London, 2011 Caney, S. (2019), Democratic Reform, Intergenerational Justice and the Challenges of the Long-Term, Guildford: University of Surrey www.cusp.ac.uk/publications Chilvers, J and Kearnes, M. (2016), Remaking Participation: science, environment and emergent publics, Routledge, Abingdon Duffy, B. et al (2019), Divided Britain? Polarisation and fragmentation trends in the UK, Policy Institute, Kings College, University of London Green Alliance (2019), Power to the people: Shaping UK climate policy through deliberative democracy, Green Alliance, London Hammond, M. et al (2019), Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Hammond, M and Smith, G (2017), Sustainable Prosperity and Democracy: A Research Agenda. CUSP Working Paper No 8. Guildford: University of Surrey www.cusp.ac.uk/publications Hammond, M. (2019), Interview on ecological democracy: https://truthout.org/articles/to-confront-climate-change-we-need-an-ecological-democracy/ Hansard Society (2019), Audit of Political Engagement, 16th report, Hansard Society, London Involve’s knowledge base on how to do effective public engagement: https://www.involve.org.uk/resources/knowledge-base Jackson, T. (2019), Zero Carbon Sooner, CUSP Working Paper, CUSP, University of Surrey, www.cusp.ac.uk Marshall, G. (2014), Don’t Even Think About It: why our brains are wired to ignore climate change, Bloomsbury, London ScienceWise resources on public engagement projects in energy and climate change: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20170110121812/http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/dialogue_topics/issues/3 Smith, G.(2009), Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

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Thank you for your engagement and interest! Good luck and keep in touch: i.christie@surrey.ac.uk

Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity: www.cusp.ac.uk / CES, University of Surrey