The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has submitted for a hearing and public information a draft ministerial order to launch the necessary work for the preparation and organisation of the Citizens’ Assembly for Climate.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has submitted for public hearing and information adraft ministerial order to launch the necessary work for the preparation and organisation of the Citizens’ Assembly for Climate, an instrument to strengthen the channels of dialogue and citizen participation that will allow a social debate to be established on the search for solutions to the climate crisis.
Its implementation is one of the priority lines of action of the Declaration on the Climate and Environmental Emergency in Spain, enshrined in the Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition.
The draft ministerial order lays the foundations of the Assembly and is based on the analysis of experiences and lessons learned from other assemblies of neighbouring countries, such as the French, Scottish or English, with a view to proposing a solid basis in accordance with the national context on which this initiative is based and which can be enriched through the public information process.
The Assembly is configured as a participatory deliberative exercise to generate reflection, collective knowledge, debate and consensus on what should be the solutions to the major transformations that need to be undertaken and it does so in a favourable regulatory context: Spain now has a strategic energy and climate framework that will allow our country to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change and climate neutral by mid-century.
This body will be made up of one hundred people representing the diversity of Spanish society, selected independently and randomly, applying a methodology that ensures the quality and representativeness of the sample based on criteria such as age, gender, educational level, geographical origin and attitude towards climate change.
The proposed mandate for the Citizens’ Assembly will revolve around the question: “A safer Spain in the face of climate change, how do we do it?”, without prejudice to specifying more limited and specific topics related to the solutions that are within our reach in the areas of mitigation and adaptation to climate change, with the horizon of achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
To ensure the transparency and independence of this initiative, governance bodies are established in the form of a Coordination Panel, an Independent Group of Experts and Ambassadors. In addition, there will be an independent technical team for the selection of citizens and another specialized in deliberative processes, to dynamize the sessions of the Assembly.
