A citizens' assembly of 108 randomly selected UK residents, commissioned by six House of Commons select committees, that met over six weekends in 2020 and set out how the UK should reach net zero by 2050. Its report was advisory; the government never gave the point-by-point response MPs asked for.
In June 2019 the UK became the first major economy to legislate a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The target was set; the path was not. Climate protest that year included demands from Extinction Rebellion for a citizens' assembly, and the French government was preparing its own Citizens' Convention for Climate. In Westminster, the initiative came not from government but from Parliament: six House of Commons select committees — Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; Environmental Audit; Housing, Communities and Local Government; Science and Technology; Transport; and Treasury — jointly commissioned Climate Assembly UK to ask how the UK should meet its target.
The parliamentary origin matters. Select committees scrutinise government; they cannot legislate or bind ministers. The assembly was therefore designed as an input to committee inquiries and to public debate, not as a decision-making body.
The assembly was funded by the House of Commons, which provided £120,000, together with two philanthropic funders, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the European Climate Foundation, which gave £200,000 each, raised to £220,000 each to cover extra costs caused by COVID-19 — about £560,000 in all. Members received £150 per weekend, and their travel, accommodation, food and costs such as childcare were covered.
The public good produced was information: a detailed record of what an informed cross-section of the public would accept — for example, a frequent-flyer levy, a ban on new petrol and diesel cars by 2030–2035, changes to diet and farming, and a preference for natural carbon removal such as forests and peatland over engineered options. An interim briefing in June 2020 reported that around 80% of members wanted the economic recovery from the pandemic to be designed to help reach net zero.
Members' recommendations entered Parliament's work rather than law. The evaluation found that several later select committee inquiries cited the report and that many MPs valued it as insight into informed public opinion. Members' knowledge and political confidence rose, and deliberative quality improved over time; moving online did not appear to harm it. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy later described the assembly's influence as agenda-setting at best. There was no mechanism obliging government to act, and none was used.
Final report The Path to Net Zero (10 September 2020) with more than 50 recommendations and 25 principles. Committees cited it in later inquiries; in July 2021 the BEIS Committee said ministers had dropped a promised point-by-point response.
A one-off, advisory assembly commissioned by select committees, which could not bind government. It ended with its report; its influence ran through committee work and public debate, and evaluators judged its broad scope a weakness.
Climate Assembly UK was commissioned by six House of Commons select committees and had 108 members chosen by civic lottery. It met over three in-person weekends in Birmingham and three online weekends between January and May 2020, and published its report on 10 September 2020.[1][2][3]
Its evaluators found that adapting the assembly's scope to the scale of climate change compromised members' learning, the coordination of recommendations, members' endorsement of them and their impact on parliament and government, and argued for more democratic agenda-setting.[1][2]
In July 2021 the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee said the government had initially promised a point-by-point response to the assembly's report but no longer planned one, and asked it to state which recommendations it accepted in full or part and which it rejected.[1]
Climate Assembly UK was funded with £120,000 from the House of Commons and £220,000 each from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the European Climate Foundation; members received £150 per weekend plus expenses.[1]