Question
Along with yourself and Cllrs Burgess and Croy, I attended Extinction Rebellion's first public meeting in Wokingham at the beginning of the month. You in fact were the guest speaker at the event. We all know the climate crisis we face. Extinction Rebellion exists to ensure we act and we act now. It makes three demands of governments:
• Tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency
• Act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025
• Create and be led by a citizen’s assembly on climate and ecological justice.
This Council has already declared a climate emergency and thus taken the first step towards action. Will the Executive Member for Climate Emergency consider taking the next step by giving his full support to Extinction Rebellion’s ethos and all of its aims by setting up a local citizen’s assembly within the next 3 months to inform local policy on how to tackle this crisis?
Minutes:
Question
Along with yourself and Councillors Burgess and Croy, I attended Extinction Rebellion's first public meeting in Wokingham at the beginning of the month. You, in fact, were the guest speaker at the event. We all know the climate crisis we face. Extinction Rebellion exists to ensure we act and we act now. It makes three demands of governments:
• Tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency;
• Act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025;
• Create and be led by a citizen’s assembly on climate and ecological justice.
This Council has already declared a climate emergency and thus taken the first step towards action. Will the Executive Member for Climate Emergency consider taking the next step by giving his full support to Extinction Rebellion’s ethos and all of its aims by setting up a local citizens’ assembly within the next three months to inform local policy on how to tackle this crisis?
Answer
I can confirm that, on September 3rd, I spoke for approximately 5 to 10 minutes at the beginning of a presentation on the climate crisis held by Extinction Rebellion Wokingham.
I can also confirm that on August 29th I met with several members of the Extinction Rebellion Reading organising group to discuss our approach to Climate Emergency and our path forward in the coming months.
As stated in the Extinction Rebellion Guide to Citizen’s Assemblies the purpose of such assembly is to 1) Listen, 2) Learn, 3) Deliberate and 4) Decide on actions required in order to meet the objectives of net carbon zero, something Wokingham Borough Council has committed to doing by 2030 as part of our Climate Emergency Declaration.
Something else we have committed to is to establish a cross party working group to investigate and propose further recommendations to help achieve a carbon neutral Borough, reporting back in 6 months. Specifically, and I quote directly from the minutes of the last full Council meeting: “the working group will invite, consult and involve as wide a participation from our local community as possible, in order to create a broad consensus of how we contribute to the fight against the climate crisis”. These are also similar to the stated objectives of the Extinction Rebellion Citizens’ Assembly.
I have already announced that on September 26th we will begin a consultation with residents, asking them to feed in all of their ideas for how we tackle climate change across the Borough. These ideas will be published for all to see. They will be brought to the working group to be discussed, debated and decided upon.
We have already sought expert advice, both by opening lines of communication with Extinction Rebellion Reading, and by talking with Reading University on how we calculate our carbon footprint, and I welcome the invitation of other expert opinion to the meetings of the working group, as laid out in the minutes of the last meeting.
Once we have an action plan, elements of it will be subjected to further public and business consultation, but this cannot be done until we have a definitive list of potential actions and measures.
Resident events to discuss the climate crisis are already being organised across the Borough. Greener Wokingham has one organised for September 25th. I actively encourage input from all these organisations across the Borough.
Supplementary Question
A consultation is not really the same as a citizens’ assembly. I do understand that we will be talking to residents, but can I have confirmation, yes or no, are we going to have a citizens’ assembly?
Supplementary Answer
To specifically answer that question; it was the final part of my earlier answer. I understand the objectives of a Climate Emergency. I feel that everything we are putting in place in terms of inviting public input, holding it to scrutiny and inviting expert opinion means that, in the short term, we are clearly living up to the ideals and expectations of an Extinction Rebellion citizens’ assembly.
Once we have an action plan in place, I will be happy to re-discuss this suggestion with Councillor Kerr and other members of the working group.