100 randomly selected citizens deliberate and work to come up with measures to reduce greenhouse gases by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050
Grenoble Alpes Métropole, a promoter member of the International Observatory for Participatory Democracy, has launched a Citizens' Climate Convention with the ambition of moving towards carbon neutrality by 2050. 100 citizens are chosen at random to make proposals.
The Citizens' Climate Convention is a forum for debate and proposals that has helped to raise awareness of this type of deliberative process. Moreover, the Grenoble metropolitan area is the first conurbation to set up a citizens' climate convention of such scale and ambition: bringing together 100 citizens, this convention has lasted several months, with a firm commitment to follow up the proposals made, with total transparency: all the convention's proposals are submitted to the Metropolitan Council.
From that point onwards, the elected representatives have the option of voting or not on each of the proposals made, or of giving them another outcome: either these proposals do not fall within the metropolitan remit and are passed on to the competent bodies in the matter, or these proposals give rise to an intense debate that cannot be decided and it is then up to the inhabitants to decide, during a citizens' vote organised on metropolitan soil.
In any case, Metropolis intends to explain clearly to the citizens all the stages of the process: from the selection of the 100 members of the Convention to the destination of their proposals, through the whole process of formation and deliberation until the beginning of the year 2023. In addition, the Metropolitan Citizens' Climate Convention aimed to answer two questions: how to reduce greenhouse gases by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050?
In relation to the mandate given by Metropolis to the Convention, the operational committee wanted citizens to work on three outcomes: (i) how they see themselves in the metropolitan territory by 2050 (low-carbon vision); (ii) possible levers to achieve this vision; (iii) concrete actions to be implemented by Metropolis. The results of the deliberations can be found in the final report already published.
After 8 months of working on their proposals, some twenty members of the Citizens' Climate Convention have agreed to become ambassadors and to continue their commitment by explaining how the 219 proposals for action were discussed and defending their proposals in the municipalities of the metropolis.
At the 21st IOPD convention, a session was organised by Grenoble Alpes Métropole on the relevance of creating such citizens' climate assemblies, as the best way to find feasible solutions to the climate problematic is through consensus and citizen engagement.
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