Citizens Convention for Climate

On April 25, 2019, President Emmanuel Macron announced the creation of the Citizens Convention for Climate in a press conference. The stated purpose was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from their level in 1990 in accordance with social justice. This letter describes the organization of the convention and the independence of its governance committee. Philippe also stated that the proposals of the convention would be submitted to the President without filter. == Theory ==

The Citizens Convention for Climate is an example of a deliberative mini-public. Mini-publics are bodies chosen from the general public by random selection, also known as sortition. Juries, planning cells, consensus conferences, and deliberative polls are all examples of mini-publics. The Citizens Convention for Climate is a specific type of mini-public known as a citizens' assembly, a mini-public in which randomly selected members of the public are given legislative power as representatives of the general public, either formal or advisory, in a specific issue area or a group of issue areas. Citizens' assemblies are designed to be representative of the diversity of the entire population. The members of the convention had varying opinions on whether they believed themselves to be representatives of the public. During the first session, 43 of the 123 members who answered a survey believed that they spoke only for themselves, 25 said they spoke for themselves and people like themselves, 24 said they spoke in the name of causes they cared about, and 3 in the name of other groups. At the same time as the French Citizens' Convention, the United Kingdom also held a citizens' assembly on climate change. Washington state is holding a citizens' assembly, which began in January 2021, and there have been proposals to solve a number of issues with help from citizens' assemblies such as COVID-19 and democratic reform. The citizens' convention was also, in part, inspired by consensus conventions on technology, featured most prominently in Denmark which has had 22 such conferences since 1998. These conferences also bring together a representative group of citizens to deliberate on an issue. In these conferences, the citizens write a report on what issues unite the participants and where they were able to find consensus. == Membership ==

Sortition The 150 members of the Citizens' Assembly on Climate were chosen randomly using sortition in order to produce a representative sample of the French population. Initially, the organizers randomly selected 250,000 phone numbers. They then texted each selected number to request permission to call about the convention. If granted permission, they called to collect demographic information. From this process, 190 citizens were selected, with 40 of them serving as substitutes. while the Irish Citizens' Assembly used four. Researchers have examined the sample of the population beyond the initial six categories covered by the quota sampling. There were many similarities between the French population and the members of the convention, notably among most cultural values, satisfaction with the media, satisfaction with life, and the desire for a high standard of living. • Jean-Michel Fourniau, Professor at Université Gustave Eiffel, Research Director at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks and President of "Democracy and Participation" a research interest group == Activity ==

The convention was planned to consist of six two and a half day sessions, spanning October 2019 to February 2020 taking place every third week. Ultimately, the convention consisted of seven sessions, beginning on-schedule in October 2019, but ending in June 2020. The fourth session was initially delayed by the 2019-2020 Pension Reform Strike, which closed public transportation. The session was primarily focused on defining and clarifying the mission of the assembly. First, the assembly spoke with paleoclimatologist Valérie Masson-Delmonte and Director General of the Institute for Climate Economics Benoit Leguet, then the governance committee presented and took questions. After summarizing their progress from the first session, the members debated greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets and how to achieve them. Much of the work during this session was held in the 5 working groups established in the first session. Many called for increased visibility and awareness, along with greater citizens' participation. In total, over 60 experts spoke with the convention over the course of the weekend. Many of these meetings were contained in one working group, with each working group meeting a collection of experts simultaneously, but journalist and environmental activist Nicolas Hulot, at the request of the members, spoke individually to the whole group to describe his vision of the convention. The entire convention also heard from the team of impact assessors. Each day of the convention opened with over three hours of work within each of the thematic groups, accompanied with parallel meetings of "the squad", which was supposed to resolve differences between proposals of different committees but was disbanded after this session. At the end of the session, the committee members began writing the final proposal based on the recommendations of the working groups. When asked by a sixteen year old member of the convention whether he thought the future of democracy was more deliberative like the convention, he responded "At the same time that we invent deliberative democracy, we need to restore representative democracy." After finalizing the proposals and creating the presentations, the committee questioned experts on the specific proposals of each working group. The convention then split into groups which they called "îlots" (small islands), composed of members of each working group. They then discussed a number of issues including legislative, regulatory, and referendum-based implementation methods, constitutional amendments, and financing. They also read an official statement to be delivered to the French public. On Saturday morning, the convention debated and voted on the food group's proposal. After agreeing to 149 provisions, == Proposals ==

The Convention ultimately approved 149 proposals, many of them with near universal support. The only proposal to be rejected reduced the work week from 35 hours to 28 hours without salary loss. The criminalization of ecocide was considered especially significant as it emerged from the citizens and was not originally a part of the convention's expert-defined agenda. The proposals of each working group passed with very strong support, typically above 90% for each bundle of proposals and almost always above 80%. The transportation working group passed proposals to promote alternatives to cars and improve public roads, increase the use of high-speed rail, reduce the carbon footprint of long-distance travel and air-travel, and to create a government website with all transportation options. The consumption group passed provisions mandating that companies disclose products' carbon footprint, limiting advertising for high-carbon products, restricting single-use plastic, and creating educational programs about low-carbon consumption. The housing group passed provisions to require the renovation and retrofitting of buildings by 2040 and effective land resource management to prevent urban expansion. The employment group created programs to finance the transition to a lower carbon economy, require companies to track their carbon footprints, and monitor changes in digital technology as it relates to the environment. Finally the food sector working group passed regulations on restaurants and farmers and provisions promoting local food production, limiting food waste, fostering agro-ecology, improving consumer information, increasing agricultural education, and reforming fisheries. The food group also promoted an ambitious target in the Common Agricultural Practice (CAP) negotiations. == Government reception ==

At the outset of the convention, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe declared that the proposals of the convention would be submitted without filter, although the exact meaning of this statement was unclear. He also said "you can't say that just because 150 citizens wrote something, it's the Bible or the Koran." In December 2020, the members of the convention and Macron met to discuss progress on the bill and news agencies reported division between the two parties over issues such as an amendment to the constitution to include environmental protection, automobile regulations, and a proposed moratorium on 5G development. It passed in the National Assembly on May 4, 2021. == Outside analysis and criticism ==

The Citizens Convention for Climate has attracted considerable attention from democratic scholars, many of whom studied the convention by observing its deliberations, monitoring its progress, and interviewing its members. One such scholar is Hélène Landemore, a political theorist, who wrote some of her observations in her book Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century. She observed a three-way struggle for power and legitimacy between the members of the convention, traditional formal institutions like parliament, and civic organizations and social movements like the Citizen Vests, a major proponent of the convention. == References ==