118: How are citizens shaping the UK's climate strategy?
Tackling climate change increasingly means action at the household level. Around a third of the emissions reductions needed over the next 15 years will come from changes in how we heat our homes, travel and consume energy. But how do policymakers decide which pathways to net zero will work for everyday people? And how do they ensure proposed changes are affordable, practical and publicly acceptable?
In this episode, Jen Roberts and Matt Hannon are joined by Dr Sandra Bögelein, Lead Analyst for People and Net Zero at the Climate Change Committee, to discuss how citizens are helping to shape UK climate policy. They explore the Climate Change Committee's Seventh Carbon Budget and how Citizens Panels were used alongside expert analysis and modelling to understand public perspectives on household climate action.
Together, they discuss what these deliberative processes revealed about public priorities, trade-offs and co-benefits, the opportunities and challenges of involving citizens in policymaking, and how similar approaches could support climate decision-making at local and regional levels.
Links:
The CCC Seventh Carbon Budget Report: theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/The-Seventh-Carbon-Budget.pdf
The CCC Citizens’ Panel for an accessible and affordable household vision of Net Zero: Citizens’ Panel for an accessible and affordable household vision of Net Zero (Ipsos) - Climate Chan…
The three Citizens’ Juries from 2013/14 that Jen mentioned: Citizens’ juries on wind farm development in Scotland | ClimateXChange
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Transcript
Sandra Bogelein: At the end of the deliberations, people were pretty much on board with those low carbon household choices when they understood that in the context of getting to net zero, given that there are government policies to support them, what comes out of a lot of those deliberative processes that people really appreciate how much they learn. So they really feel like they become expert, and they want other people to go through a similar kind of learning.
Sandra Bogelein: So they always advocate for more proactive information and better engagement on those low carbon choices.
Jen Roberts: Hello and welcome to local zero, the Strathclyde Institute for Sustainable Communities podcast. I'm Jen Roberts
Matt Hannon: and I'm Matt Hannan. And in today's episode, we're exploring how and why citizens are shaping our strategy towards tackling climate change.
Jen Roberts: Now, there's an increasing focus in some political circles about how citizens can take back control of the net zero agenda. But there's already a lot of ongoing citizen engagement that's helping to shape our climate change strategy.
Matt Hannon: But many people are unaware of how citizen engagement is shaping our climate strategy and the types of methods being employed. And it's been a while since we've covered this topic on local zero. You'd have to go as far back as episodes 89. And number six, we'll put those in the show notes.
Jen Roberts: But today we're joined by Doctor Sandra Bogelein, lead analyst for people and net zero at the Climate Change Committee, with a background of applying social science research methods in academia. Sandra has experience of applying these in practice to shape UK climate policy.
Matt Hannon: On today's discussions, going to talk about how Sandra and colleagues have applied these practices and different types of citizen engagement in terms of shaping the UK's carbon budget. But before we get into that, a quick reminder to follow local zero on LinkedIn to stay up to date with the pod. Share your feedback and suggestions. Just search for Local Zero podcast.
Jen Roberts: And wherever and however you’re listening. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Matt Hannon: Today we are talking about something quite close, I think to our area of interest and something I know you've written a fair bit about. I've, I think hanging onto your coattails a little bit in the last couple of years been learning a lot more about this, which is about how we engage with citizens and how we do this to shape our climate policy, energy policy, you name it, transport policy.
Matt Hannon: And, there's a number of different ways to do it. But you hear here this all the time, you know, we just got to ask the people what they want. And then we'll, you know, bing, bang bosh. Here's a policy I made earlier. So, Jen, I don't know whether it's maybe just pausing, reflecting, just getting some of the basics out here, some of the work around this space in your mind when somebody says deliberative, participatory democracy, which a very kind of long academic words for what we're talking about, citizen engagement.
Matt Hannon: What do these mean to you?
Jen Roberts: I mean, they mean a lot of quite difficult and quite challenging, but really rewarding work. Matt. Yeah, as anyone who's worked in this space will know, perhaps before we dive into the nitty gritty of those, because it is really interesting, it is really helpful for today's conversation with Sandra. But before we do that, I suppose it's worth even in zooming out around the fact that when we vote, we are participating in democracy and we are participating in democracy in a way that tells the people who who are receiving those votes the sort of direction of travel that we want.
Jen Roberts: But there's a big difference between how you vote privately in a little box. Often people are voting with themselves in mind as well. And so deliberative or participatory democracy at its foundation is to challenge and to provide a compliment or an alternative to those weaknesses in our current democratic process.
Matt Hannon: I think that's a really good way to begin that. So the two things that kind of, for me, drawn out this, this goes above and beyond these sort of formal democratic processes. And two, certainly we'll get into the differences between participatory and deliberative democracy. But these aren't meant to be individualistic. Know at their heart, as you say, it's about kicking around these ideas, discussing them, being informed and kind of arriving for some of these is arriving at a balance, or even, dare I say, a consensus.
Matt Hannon: Now, that is not the certainly not my experience of going to the ballot box. That's a very individual experience. Nobody even knows what I voted for unless I go down to the pub or the cafe, or go back home and say, you know, just to divulge. Yes, just have to write on my forehead. So, so maybe it's worth getting into a little bit about.
Matt Hannon: I think most most listeners will understand the kind of basis of democracy. But when we talk about participatory democracy and today we're going to be talking mostly about deliberative democracy people and including myself on occasion, certainly in the past, have used this interchangeably. They're not right. They mean two different things, right?
Jen Roberts: Yeah, yeah. And I often hear them use with public engagement and citizen engagement and they are different terms and different terminologies. But yeah, so I think I think probably our listeners might be more familiar or most familiar with the concept of climate assemblies. Might not be this that might be a newish word for people, but it has become quite a common word in the general lexicon, which is such a almost like an oxymoron, isn't it?
Jen Roberts: But like, you know, people are aware of of climate assemblies as a term. They may not be that aware of what a climate assembly is or what it means, but a climate assembly is a form of deliberative democracy at the. Yeah, it's kind of goal when we're talking about these processes. Just to pick up on something you said before, these are typically formal processes.
Jen Roberts: They're very formal. They usually would have a mandate or a purpose for why this approach is being taken, why this thing is being held and what the outcomes will inform. But some of the critique that's ongoing about climate assemblies or citizen assemblies, citizens juries, some of the critique is on the fact that sometimes those have been held without necessarily a clear path to the policies that will that they will inform.
Matt Hannon: Yeah. What's the what's the end goal of this?
Jen Roberts: What's the end goal. Yeah, exactly. And how can that process be accountable. Yeah. And to what the people say. Yeah. But yeah deliberative processes. What you're looking to do is you're looking to bring a diverse array of people together. They've been selected for a particular diverse characteristics, and you're bringing them together to become informed about a topic at hand, the issue at hand.
Jen Roberts: They get to learn about it. They get to hear from experts in different forms of hearing and different forms of learning. It's not always like lecture based, but people get to become informed about a topic and then consider that topic in real detail and deliberated discuss it. And I discuss the difference between kind of dialogue and discussion and deliberation is the fact you are moving towards a kind of other regarding perspective.
Jen Roberts: And we have a word in we. We offer a phrase we often use about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. Yeah, but how often are we really putting ourselves in other people's shoes, or really get the opportunity to hear testimonies from people, you know, wearing these shoes, what it's like for them on that topic? And so part of becoming informed about a topic is also to hear those testimonies of experience, of lived experience.
Jen Roberts: And once you you've gone through that process and you're usually these processes, your specific is supported through particular activities to go through that deliberation and that deliberation is being evaluated for a certain quality. Yeah. Then what you come up with is a series of outputs, and exactly what those outputs are depend on the task at hand. The task that's been set to the homework task, you know.
Matt Hannon: So look, what we don't want to do is steel Sandra's thunder. But I do think it's worth just probing it. Maybe one more question or a couple of smaller ones before before we bring her in. Which is why should we bother using these? And also why do we maybe not use them much at the moment? Is there any reflections you have?
Matt Hannon: I mean, I certainly have them, but all the work you've done, is there anything you'd like to kind of reflect that?
Jen Roberts: Yeah. So I guess often times on this podcast, but not always, we're talking about the UK or the Scottish example. And I suppose it is worth starting this bit by saying places around the world use these participatory or deliberative processes, these democratic processes, in lots of different ways and lots of different like power sharing in there. So this might feel quite new to a degree in the UK context.
Jen Roberts: It certainly is newish in the sense of climate policy, but we've been using these processes, for example, to direct social and healthcare for, for really a very long time. And the argument behind these, these interests in democratic innovations is usually the umbrella term is that firstly, given the issues with elected representation that we currently have in their guides, and that ultimately is how our decision making and shaped, given that there are weaknesses, then there are these arguments.
Jen Roberts: You know that first of all, having citizen participation, particularly with people who are most affected by a policy, people most vulnerable to your policy, it is the right thing to do, because those people are not necessarily the people in positions of power and decision making power. So it's the right thing to do in terms of involving them. The other side of it is the fact that including those experiences can offer something different, something really useful, something really valuable.
Jen Roberts: If you're not asking, those people are asking that diverse group of people. Yeah, then you're missing a really important trick. You know, it's that idea that diversity equals innovation, you know, leads to better innovations. Yeah. So you're going to get a better decision, a better idea of what the possible outcomes should be by including people within that decision making process.
Jen Roberts: And then there's the other part, which is a little bit more a bit less empowering, I suppose, a bit more strategic. And it's a fact that the fact that if you shaped a process or a policy through involving a diverse array of people, then you're going to have better buy in. You know, more by in because normal people like you and me, I'm not sure if we're normal, but, you know, normal people, everyday citizens have been able to shape this process, and particularly because these processes are usually very, very transparent, that creates an element of trust and that everyday citizens might be better trusted then, say, politicians.
Jen Roberts: But of course, not everybody holds those opinions. So there are these different arguments as to why these processes lead to better outcomes. And they're difficult to argue with. But ultimately, not everybody does see these as a very valuable contribution. And I been really on the lookout for examples where these processes have led to certain outcomes in the UK, because there are examples where these processes are led to very clear decision making overseas.
Jen Roberts: Really good example is usually given in the case of Ireland, but in the UK situation or the Scottish context or, you know, elements of Britain, where have we done these processes like the proliferation of these, these types of processes over the last few years, and where is the power sharing? And importantly then what does that then lead to?
Jen Roberts: So I was really very excited when the Climate Change Committee started, including in their reports, almost like a response to the UK Climate Assembly, which is held quite a long time ago. That wasn't something that the Climate Change Committee commissioned, but they were always listing how what they were putting in their reports or how it linked to the threads, the themes, the the priority topics that were coming out of the climate assembly process and then to see how they've then gone and employed deliberative approaches themselves to to inform what they've been up to.
Jen Roberts: So I think Sandra's going to be talking with us today about a quite specific piece of work that they've been doing, but it's been a journey that they've been quite committed to for a little while now. And I'm really excited to hear firsthand from Sandra about about how that's come about.
Matt Hannon: And it's all about how these processes have shaped the seventh carbon budget. So I think, without further ado, Jen, we've trailed this long enough. I bring Sandra and tell us how it's done.
Jen Roberts: All right. Let's hear from our expert.
Sandra Bogelein: Hi, my name is Sandra and I work for the Climate Change Committee. My official title is now lead Analyst for People in Places. So that covers both households and local authorities and how they're involved in this climate mitigation and adaptation.
Matt Hannon: Well welcome, Sandra. Thank you for coming along. We're always very happy to have members of the Climate Change Committee along, people helping really to put climate policy interaction to bring the evidence base to kind of flesh that out. So we're absolutely delighted to have you long. And it's been just over a year, I think, since the seventh carbon budget was announced in the UK.
Matt Hannon: So maybe before we talk about how that was pulled together and the types of processes methods itself and colleagues have used. I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit, firstly about what the Climate Change Committee is and what the carbon budgets are.
Sandra Bogelein: So the Climate Change Committee, the CCE, is the independent statutory adviser to UK governments on climate change, and that covers both the mitigation and the adaptation side. And when we talk about the seventh carbon budget, we go to the mitigation side. So we have got a goal of net zero by 2050 in the UK. And to achieve this goal, we kind of have different steps down from where we are in the emissions now to 2050.
Sandra Bogelein: And those steps come in five year chunks, which are our carbon budget. So basically every carbon budget every five years tells you the sort of amount of emission reductions that are required to essentially get in an ordered way, if you like to net zero by 2050. So in February 2025, we have published our advice on the seventh carbon budget, which covers the period from 2038 to 2042.
Sandra Bogelein: And we had have advised the government that during this period, we need to achieve an 87% reduction in carbon emissions compared to 1990. So currently we're at about 50% reduction a little bit more, and we need to get to 87% reduction in the period of the seventh carbon budget. And very exciting. The UK government has accepted our advice on that.
Sandra Bogelein: But so that's just a number. We also in our carbon budget advice and that's kind of when we talk about the seventh carbon budget, most people think about what we call the balanced pathway. So the balance pathway is our advice on the kind of things we need to do to achieve the seventh carbon budget, and then net zero by 2050.
Sandra Bogelein: And that's economy. Why it's so for every sector of the economy. So for example transport, agriculture, residential buildings, we say this is what we think needs to happen to really get to net zero in this orderly way, in those steps through the various carbon budgets. Did that make sense?
Matt Hannon: Absolutely. Come and lecture my students on this. Is this fantastic? Because this is this is brilliant. And so I think maybe my next question then is just unpacking what some of the advice in that seventh carbon budget is. Obviously six budgets have preceded it. It's also tackling a different juncture of that journey towards particularly tricky period, I would say 2038, 2042, maybe the trickier years actually come a few years before it.
Matt Hannon: Maybe we're already well on our way. What does that period look like in beginning of the 1213 years time? What were the headlines? Just maybe, to give our list as a feel of what that world feels like in terms of the changes?
Sandra Bogelein: So I've already said we have actually achieved quite a chunk of emissions reductions in the UK already, roughly half of the emissions reductions since 1990 or 1990 levels. But that was a lot of kind of what I think about behind the scenes things. So that's sort of moving away from coal, moving towards renewable energy. So most people might not affect actually have, you know, experience much of that or seen much of that.
Sandra Bogelein: We're now moving much more in a direction where we don't only talk about supply, but we also talk about the demand side. So it comes we're coming to the period where we, businesses and households were required to do some shifts in their in the choices that they make as well. And so the really big messages that the biggest challenge of emission reductions in that Seven's converses comes from electrification.
Sandra Bogelein: So that means moving lots of the technologies that we use, whether that's in the private home or in industry, from fossil fuel based to electric technologies.
Matt Hannon: Fantastic. Okay. So I mean, there are many, many of our listeners will be familiar with that in terms of their vehicles. But I'm guessing here you're talking about in particular heating a shift. Are there any other disruptive changes that are kind of incorporated as part of that seventh carbon budget? Because a lot of what we're going to talk about today is about households and their methods that you've employed with colleagues to try and draw out their perspective.
Matt Hannon: Is there anything else to our listeners might be like, oh, I wasn't expecting that or something that, you know, might be particularly disruptive to the norm.
Sandra Bogelein: Yeah. So we actually looked at kind of how important our households in the emissions reductions for this Evans carbon budget. And we found that a third of all emissions reductions in 2040, which is quite a big chunk, really requires households directly to make certain different choices. So you've already said that's the shift from fossil fuel cars, petrol, diesel electric cars, when people buy a new or new second-hand car.
Sandra Bogelein: And then that's the change of the heating system, and the heating system comes to an end. For most people, that will be heat pumps. There is some bit of we need to insulate our homes. For those that don't have cavity wall insulation or loft insulation yet, we've got a a reduction in meat consumption. So particularly beef and lamb because they're kind of our highest impact meats.
Sandra Bogelein: And then there's a and we've just published our aviation advice. There's a there's a bit around that we can't really accommodate an increase in flying. Normally when people sort of earn more, they tend to fly more. We can't quite accommodate that projected increase in flying until the technologies have developed. And then finally we've got a bit of shift in there as well, where we need to shift from the some car kilometres from the private car to bus and vehicles active travel.
Jen Roberts: The question there was lots of relevance of households and the relevance is a third of emissions. So a big chunk of relevance. And one of the themes today is to understand how the approaches that you use to, to guide and to to shape that budget. So I understand that as part of the household chapter, the CC use citizens panels to inform its seventh carbon budget.
Jen Roberts: So would you just tell us a bit about what you know? What is a citizens panel and how did that work in practice for the Climate Change Committee?
Sandra Bogelein: Yeah. So I think maybe to start with, when we when we produce our advice, we draw lots on evidence and we draw lots on stakeholder evidence as well. So we talk to, you know, as you would expect, we talked to experts, we talked to businesses. And so for us, because we are now moving into this phase where it's not so much behind the scenes anymore and households need to make certain choices.
Sandra Bogelein: It was really important. Essentially, households are now a really important stakeholder for our advice. That's the kind of way I think about it. So it's really important that we have an element of where we consult the public on how, how the kind of changes that we need to make to net zero, how we can support households in making them what we call accessible and affordable for all.
Sandra Bogelein: So to do that, we use the citizens panel. And a citizens panel is a deliberative method. So what that means is that you bring a group of members of the public that are reflective of the UK public, you bring them together and you spent quite a lot of time with them. It starts with kind of expert presentations. They get to learn about the topic, in our case, the low carbon household choices and policies that can support them.
Sandra Bogelein: They learn a lot about that topic, and then they get to deliberate on what they think should be prioritised, what priority policies government should use to support households to do this. So it's a really it's it's a it's a it's quite hard to explain how transformative of a process it is, not only for us as researchers, but also for the people who take part in it.
Sandra Bogelein: They really become kind of experts in the field, and then they get to talk to people from all walks of life and understand how certain choices may impact them, and then they get to really express what they think government should do and what they should prioritise.
Jen Roberts: So in no case, you have shaped that the remit was going to be about households. Yes. So I suppose you or a group of other experts in addition to yourself were deciding what's in and what's out of scope for households. So where did that start? Like how did you decide from a starting point what goes into that discussion?
Sandra Bogelein: I think that's a really important element of a deliberative process that you invite people into your decision space. So it's kind of it's in our case, we already knew the kind of measures that are required to get to net zero by 2050. So that was kind of didn't open the discussion with what should you think should happen? We already knew what we needed to get to those emissions reductions.
Sandra Bogelein: So our discussion was really about what kind of policies do you think government should should sort of choose to support households and really to understand where the priorities are. And and it's so, so as part of this, we used our distribution impacts model where we look at costs and cost savings, and we look at cost of policies and how they translate to cost and cost savings for households.
Sandra Bogelein: So we didn't really we, we, we, we really took them into this very difficult space of, you know, if you want grants, the money has to come from somewhere. So that might mean increases in taxation. So we really took them into those trade off decision spaces. And that was quite important that we talked to them about, you know, every choice you make has a consequence.
Jen Roberts: That's really helpful, I think, for setting the scene, the fact that actually the pathways were already clear. The question is, how do we go about this in the way that allows for that accessible and affordable for all, which is the, I guess, the vision for these these changes and these recommendations. So when you're talking about a citizens panel, actually some of the nitty gritty nuts and bolts, Sandra, when were these held?
Jen Roberts: How many people are involved? Could you give us a quick flavour of that before we find out a bit about what you found from that process?
Sandra Bogelein: Yeah. So we held ours during summer 2024, so we could actually use the findings to directly inform our seventh carbon budget advice that we published in 2025. In our case, we had 25 members of the public that we had for seven sessions. I think in total we were together for, I think in total probably 24 hours, but we kind of had a discussion time and learning time, and we really started with from the beginning.
Sandra Bogelein: So what is climate change? Why why are we even talking about net zero? What's the relevance of the low carbon household choices? And then what kind of policies are suggested that could be suitable to bring everyone along and to make this accessible and affordable for all households?
Jen Roberts: So, yeah, basically a year before the the report was published. Actually my initial reaction is like that's, that's not that long because you're, you know, you're, you're feeding into that report. But I see also. I, I know you've been extremely busy in the last few years. So that's a huge part of that. And so how about you tell us a bit about, you know, what did you learn from the citizens panel was there was was the outcomes of those deliberations in line with what was it you were expecting or did anything particularly striking come out of it?
Jen Roberts: Just tell us a bit about about what came out. And, I guess what what was particularly challenging or interesting? Yeah. Challenging or interesting for you guys.
Sandra Bogelein: So we learned we learned a huge amount. It's quite it's quite difficult for me to kind of really restrict myself to give you the highlights. But like some of the things that really stood out to me is that. So first of all, to start with kind of the public understanding, I really learned that people don't fully understand why, for example, we asked them to shift to certain technology.
Sandra Bogelein: So it's really important to explain the electrification story that really our electricity supply is to a large extent already decarbonise, is kind of clean, and therefore we now need people to move from fossil fuel transport and heating systems to electrified heating system, so that I think it's not it's not very well understood. And I think we need to do a little bit more to explain that.
Sandra Bogelein: At the end of the deliberations, people were pretty much on board with those low carbon household choices when they they understood that in the context of, you know, tackling climate change, getting to net zero, given that there are government policies to support them, I think what comes out of a lot of those kind of deliberative processes that people really appreciate how much they learn, so they really feel like they become expert and they want other people to go through a similar kind of learning.
Sandra Bogelein: So they always advocate for more proactive information and better engagement on those low carbon choices by government. That's one of the top things that come out of these processes. We've also learned that people view different choices differently. So if I contrast, for example, home heating that people see as a necessity, they advocate for very different policies compared to, for example, aviation, that they see more of a luxury.
Sandra Bogelein: So on the aviation side, they are much more willing to apply a polluter pays principle where people who they've they've learned that half of the population doesn't actually fly in any given year. They were quite surprised by that. And that made them much more willing to sort of think about. Then those people who fly more should be the ones that kind of contribute to cleaning up the emissions from the aviation sector, rather than that being paid through general taxation, because half of the taxpaying population doesn't actually necessarily fly manure.
Sandra Bogelein: Whereas when you go back to home heating, the polluter pays printer does appeal much less because everyone requires heating. People might not be able to afford the kind of switch to low carbon heating systems as easily. The one thing which won't surprise you, but like, is quite, quite useful for us as a, as a principle is that people are on spreadsheets.
Sandra Bogelein: So when we think about a switch, say again, if I take the low carbon heating system as example from a gas boiler to a low carbon heating, this we think about upfront costs and running costs. And then we think about it over the lifetime of a heating system, which is maybe 15 years, you know, people might save because the running costs are lower.
Sandra Bogelein: That's not how people think about things. They don't think in 15 year terms. You know, they tell you. Well, I need to pay back over, say, five years for this to be a meaningful, positive choice for me. So we really we could really show that upfront costs are just as important as running costs, if not more important when people make their choice and they're just a finer thing, maybe two finer things.
Sandra Bogelein: Sorry I warned you. It's really hard to restrict myself. Is that, again, this is something that comes out of a lot of deliberative processes. And and I think it's something that's really, we, we come out with a very positive feeling because people think about those that might not have as much of a choice. So people always think about low income households, and they want them to have that extra support, and they're happy to support people on low incomes.
Sandra Bogelein: And that might have less of a choice. They want to think government, to think about renters who might have less of a choice. So they really look out for those that they think might be more negatively impacted by certain policies. And I also was surprised that if you maybe compare that with survey results, how positive people were about phase out dates, and they thought that as long as theyre far in the future, it really is a way that enables households and businesses and the government to prepare for a shift.
Sandra Bogelein: So a phase our day to electric cars and for gas boilers were seen actually as quite positive.
Matt Hannon: That's really interesting, Sandra, one thing that comes to me, you've been saying fair bit about how people were listening on the basis of that information. They were starting at points, maybe even to shift their position, or at least they were, you know, advancing or evolving their position depending on what they heard. I understand with these citizens panels, there's a period and I think I read through the methodology reports from Ipsos on this, you know, listening to the experts initially, quote unquote, the experts.
Matt Hannon: And to hear, you know, the issues that they were then going to deliberate about. So that's interesting. But then kind of taking it to the next step, I'm imagining that the participants were also able to listen to each other and depending on what position their peers arrived at or presented as a concern or as a benefit, that may have then shifted their position again, or, you know, maybe doubled down in the direction of the expert view.
Matt Hannon: Or maybe it contradicted it that peer, not peer pressure, is the wrong word. It's it's peer learning and that knowledge exchange. How important was that in shaping participants views? Or maybe it didn't happen at all.
Jen Roberts: Personal testimonies.
Matt Hannon: Testimonies. Yeah.
Sandra Bogelein: Yeah. So I think I think it's a it's a very crucial part of deliberative processes is that you get together with people that you might not normally talk to, that you might not normally get together with. So I think it's especially when we talk around really, you know, consideration of people who are in different situations becomes becomes a really important thing by listening to people who come from other walks of life.
Sandra Bogelein: So I my, my intuition is that, for example, that that really clear concern for people on low incomes is partly also due because they hear from other people on low incomes of how their situation might be. So it's a really important it's basically it's the two part system, as you kind of hear from experts, but then you also hear from, you know, peers, people in other in other living situations.
Sandra Bogelein: So, so it's it's the second piece of the puzzle for a really important deliberative process.
Matt Hannon: And that second part feels quite divorced about where we may be arriving at in terms of public debate around so many issues, but not least net zero, this, this view that actually through the way that most people consume their information, for example, through social media, that they're consuming one perspective rather than a myriad of, of views from different backgrounds.
Matt Hannon: And maybe that that is the key to, to arriving at a more balanced. And I'm talking from both ends of the spectrum. I know from, from listeners, they'll be thinking, oh, right. You know, that's talking about, you know, this particular political circle. And I am to to an extent, but I'm also talking about folks who are thinking, you know, everything's got to go green tomorrow, you know, got solar panels on every roof and an EV on every drive.
Matt Hannon: And it's like, well, hang on, you know, the truth of the matter and the way forward lies somewhere in between. I don't know, is that a perspective that kind of came to the fore about, actually, there's something that we could learn from this process more generally, not just about setting carbon budgets, but about taking this dialogue forward.
Sandra Bogelein: Yes. So I think what I have learned from this process is that people, if you give them the time and if you give them the ability to learn about something, they inherently make very sensible suggestions. And I think we sometimes don't give them enough credit.
Matt Hannon: That's really good news. That's the kind of good news I was hoping I might hear.
Sandra Bogelein: And I think the other thing is also that we sometimes really underestimate how people can get their head around super complex topics. So as I said, one of the bits that we did, we actually used the results from our, from our from one of our impacts modelling from our distribution impacts models. And they are very complex. And obviously we did a lot of work trying to translate that and make them digestible.
Sandra Bogelein: They still ended up being pretty complex, but people are up for it. They're really up for kind of hearing about what are the trade offs, what are the tricky decisions that we need to make. We talk to them about, you know, if we reduce the price of electricity, how should that be paid for? That's a very complex question.
Sandra Bogelein: That kind of impact different households differently. And they all engaged with it brilliantly.
Jen Roberts: I think that's that's super interesting and super encouraging. And, I think the other thing I wanted to pick up on, which is the listeners would be like, oh, Jen's banging on about that thing again, which is the co-benefits side. So, you know, for example, with different forms of heating in our homes, we've now got more and more evidence around some of the harmful effects associated with our kind of normalised fossil fuel based heating systems.
Jen Roberts: And there's this kind of this hope, I suppose, and evidence informed in some cases that change or decisions might be, supported. People might buy into some of these changes if there's also other co-benefits like healthier homes, healthier lifestyles, whatever those k benefits could be, whether it's we're talking a lot here about cost. So the obvious benefit there is is something might be cheaper for some, you know, different end members.
Jen Roberts: And did that come out at all in the deliberations around these other forms of co-benefits. Were they not necessarily in scope for the work that you were you were tackling?
Sandra Bogelein: So so actually people brought that up themselves, that they thought that information around the co-benefits should be much more prominent. So that's one of the things that they recommended that, that that, you know, we should talk much more about, for example, how a shift away from meat to, say, a more plant based diet. And again, you know, in, in, in our advice, that's a 35% reduction in meat consumption.
Sandra Bogelein: So we're not asking everyone to become vegan or vegetarian. That that has has got a potential win win co-benefits in terms of health. Again, you know, the co-benefits of shifting to electric cars and low carbon heating system on air quality are really big. So yes. So they definitely wanted us to stress that more in our communication with with the public as well.
Jen Roberts: That's really interesting. So there's I'm hearing this, that there's a lot of I remember this from the deliberative process that I was involved in as well. Is that desire for information for better information. And this frustration kind of an anger sometimes like that. We're not getting this information. Everyone should know, you know. So suppose there's some insights here for, for engaging, for engagement.
Jen Roberts: But perhaps that's I feel like I'm skipping ahead a little bit.
Matt Hannon: Well, I was wanting to to ask a question, if you don't mind, Sandra, which is we've heard about how useful and helpful this process is in terms of informing challenges. So what are some of the reasons why this might be difficult, what you might need to know before you get into this process? Any reflections on that?
Sandra Bogelein: Yeah, I think that the first thing to say is that it is a very resource intensive process. So not only for participants to give a lot of their time and their kind of head space to really discuss these topics, but also for the organisations that commission or run these deliberative processes. So there's firstly, you need to make sure that you're really clear what kind of information you want to give people, more kind of information you want back from people.
Sandra Bogelein: So what's the decision making space that you're really talking about? You need to translate very complex information into very digestible formats for people. So all of this is really resource intensive. That also often means that deliberative process is bring together a smaller group. So if you compare it, for example, to surveys and polling, so you have a smaller group of people coming together of members of the public, there's various ways of kind of ensuring that this group of people is reflective of the general public or reflective of the public that you want to hear about for a certain topic.
Sandra Bogelein: And I think I'm also encouraged by the fact that when you look across the board at the findings of citizens about either the same topic or, you know, different topics, that the principles that underlie the recommendations that people make are often quite similar. So I have quite some confidence that if we were to run a similar process with a different group of members of the public, that, you know, the principles, the underlying principles that guide the recommendations will probably be quite similar.
Sandra Bogelein: Those are just two of the challenges. And then maybe another one would also be that you have to consider that people always and we want them to bring their lived experience to the discussions. But if you have a topic that's particularly local, where there's a particular local angle, you need to really consider where you want to run the panel and whether you might have to consider several panels that in different localities, for example.
Jen Roberts: Yeah, that's cool, and I can't help myself but do a selfish little shout out some of the work that Climate Exchange ran back in. I think the publication was in 2015, where we ran three different citizens juries like a similar thing to citizens panels in three different locations and different groups of people, and found extremely similar recommendations. But the focus of that was much more narrow in a way on on shore wind.
Jen Roberts: I kind of now want to peel back a little bit to go, well, okay, that's cool, that's interesting. But how did this actually inform then the budget? What then happened with the outcomes of this process? What did you ask them to come up with? And then how did that inform the budget and then tacked on to that as well?
Jen Roberts: Sandra. Then what's the longevity of the outcomes of that process? Do you expect to need to run another one for the next carbon budget? Like how do you see this working or are you not quite. Is that some of that remains to be seen.
Sandra Bogelein: I think the citizens had a Tim backed on our budget advice. So you will be able to find the what people said in terms of priorities for policies. We are not a policy making organisation. We give advice to government on what needs to happen, and then it's up to government to kind of decide what policies they want to implement to make this happen.
Sandra Bogelein: However, we have included the kind of priority recommendations or what kind of policies people wanted to see as priorities in our seven carbon budget advice for each sector that we discussed with the public. We have also adjusted some of our distribution impact modelling to include. And that's quite exciting. As a social researcher, if you basically take a modelling discusses with the public and then go back to adjust the modelling based on what the public said.
Sandra Bogelein: So, for example, some of the things around, you know, the importance of upfront costs, we have included that in iterations of our distribution impacts modelling, which is I just find particularly exciting.
Jen Roberts: Yeah, that's like the holy grail almost.
Jen Roberts: They listened to get on board, but that's fantastic. And it shows the importance of this work being embedded within the CC.
Sandra Bogelein: Yeah. And going forward. I'm really hoping that we can run a similar process for our eight carbon budget advice, or maybe even slightly earlier. It remains to be seen. We're sort of in a phase where we're looking at different work programs that we might run different funding options, but that is that is definitely a an ambition of mine and the CC to continue that work.
Matt Hannon: If I may just briefly jump in. And one question I have is that, you know, you say you're not making policy, you're informing policy. You're presenting policy recommendations at a grounded in evidence. This then, you know, on the whole, it's not the only department that will be taking your advice. Others, you know, Defra or the Treasury, particularly Treasury, but Disney is the Department of Energy, net zero.
Matt Hannon: Are you seeing from this carbon budget or even previous ones that are being informed by deliberative processes like this? The government departments are then taking that as policy recommendations that are being evident through deliberative methods, or they're running their own processes. I'm always interested because, you know, it's one thing to make a policy recommendation. Jen and I do it all the time for her own work.
Matt Hannon: You know, it's part and parcel of it. We did some research. This is what we found. This is what your policy might do with it. It's another thing to then actually make policy and implement policy on the ground. And I know you have a background in that area too.
Sandra Bogelein: So yeah. So, so I think I think we have seen, lots of movement on some of the aspects that have been covered by the citizens panel. I can obviously not directly attributed to what the citizens said, but there's definitely has been kind of movement in, in the direction. So some of it is, for example, reflected in the Warm Homes plan, where it's like really clear that there is sort of additional support with trying to spread some of the upfront costs with the low interest consumer loans, for example.
Sandra Bogelein: There's also this kind of, really focus on that. We make sure that we that low income households can afford some of these things. So I think we, we my impression and we will have to wait until the government publishes their own, their own delivery plan for the seventh Kambojas, which we haven't seen yet. And, and policies are changing consistently.
Sandra Bogelein: We have seen some reductions in electricity prices, which is one of the, one of our key recommendations that comes out of not only talking to citizens, but also our, our other, modelling and evidence work. Yeah. So, so I have seen quite a bit of movement on that. We have seen sort of if you look at other areas, for example, the, the kind of national food strategy that that has included some more deliberative work.
Sandra Bogelein: I haven't seen the outcome of that yet either. The public participation strategy has got a youth panel included, which is a deliberative process, particularly for young people on climate and nature, which is great. I think there could be more of that. There could be even more of that two way conversation. We'll see you in how far that participation strategy will result in, in more of those processes.
Sandra Bogelein: And I'm hoping that that's the case going forward.
Matt Hannon: And maybe before I give away agenda kind of wrap things up, I just think that youth panel piece, and it might be something that we come back around to on another episode, but I'm guessing, I mean, I know a little bit about this, but not a lot. I'm guessing we're talking a similar model to citizens panels, but we're listening to the youth, quote unquote, who they might be, particularly packaging into an age bracket around around that.
Matt Hannon: But obviously these are people who are going to inherit the world that's going to be shaped by decisions made today, and not least in the past. So, is that that be so cool to see that in the work going forward? Maybe we'll talk about that another time. But if there's anything in particular about why that's so important and how those methods might be different, that would be interesting to hear.
Sandra Bogelein: I haven't seen the details for the youth panel that the that the government is running either. I think you're right to assume that it is kind of more a deliberative process. And I think absolutely right, that it's really important to hear from the next generation who will be growing up in the transition and then will also kind of inherit whatever we we, we haven't quite lifted yet in the transition.
Sandra Bogelein: So, yeah. No, I think you're I'm not entirely sure if I'm answering your question.
Matt Hannon: No, they're even more interesting if if the voting age drops from 18, which is from discussions at the moment to 16 and some of those first panels. Anyway, that's another episode I'm going to let, let let that one go and and over to Jen.
Jen Roberts: Yeah. See my final little comment on that is that, I'm sure I've mentioned this on on the pod before, but probably like two years ago or something that one of the most I mean, our work is difficult work, right. Working in climate action is is difficult. You have emotional ups and downs within it. It's joyful, but it's challenging.
Jen Roberts: One of the more upsetting days that I had at work was looking through the results of a youth panel from 2008, or something like that. And, and looking what the youth were wanting for their future and seeing how we had absolutely not delivered on any single one of those promises. And that was like, I mean, I was graduating in 2007, 2008, so I was graduated into that climate.
Jen Roberts: That was that was a financial crash. Right. But thinking about we asked people who were at age eight, nine, ten, what do they want for their future? They wanted to be able to walk safely, cycle safely. And, you know, anyway, so these are really powerful narratives as well, not just powerful to understand what the people intergenerational thinking, what the people who are going to be living through this transition, what they feel and what they want, but also just to hold us to account to to that.
Jen Roberts: Anyway, I was going to go back to your citizens panel, Sondra, and just thinking about the method that you used and the work that you've done, you've told us about today. This has all been about informing quite like national level policy, national level recommendations, to policy to inform policy. Right. Disrespecting your distinction that you made just before.
Jen Roberts: How can the findings from what from from your work, how do they apply to the kind of the regional to the local to the community level and thinking about climate policy, climate policy and climate strategy? Just created a new word there. But if we're thinking about that, then like, how do they translate? Or is something a little bit different required?
Jen Roberts: How well do those recommendations scale?
Sandra Bogelein: Yeah. So as you said, we we are kind of we're looking at the national dialogue. What are the kind of trade offs. What are the critical decisions and the kind of the discussions we need to have on a national level. But there are also lots of deliberative processes that are happening on the local level. And sometimes that's local councils or sometimes that certain groups that do these deliberative processes.
Sandra Bogelein: And I think one of the things that I probably would also like to stress is that deliberative processes are really, really effective way to try and start building that trust. And when we we talked about young people as well, I think, you know, being able to invite it to really hear about what policymakers are thinking about and what they have to consider and then being heard and what you think should happen.
Sandra Bogelein: That is a really powerful way to start rebuilding that trust with central and local government. So on the on the local side, I think it's that they can be run in a very similar way. The point that I'd like to make again is sort of if, for example, a local council runs these processes, the decision making space, so the decisions that they can and have to make on a local level will be different from the policies that we talked about on the national level.
Sandra Bogelein: And my recommendation is really to think about, because you ask a lot of people to come and discuss those issues with you, give their opinion, have the have the confidence to really express what their priorities are. And I think an important way of listening is to be able to implement some of the things that they say. Yes. So, so it's really important that you are very clear.
Sandra Bogelein: What are your constraints? And we were really clear about that, that we're not a policymaking body. How this will be included in our advice. You know, what our advice means to government. So on a local level, it's really important to say, you know, these are the decisions we can make. These are decisions that are not in our decision making space.
Sandra Bogelein: And therefore this is something we wouldn't be able to take forward.
Matt Hannon: Thank you Sandra.
Jen Roberts: Yeah I think there's boundaries are really clear. Yeah really important.
Matt Hannon: And I think at this point we usually like to kind of wrap things up by surprising our guests with a bonus question, which is, reasons to be hopeful for the future. Jen has been calling this, I think, hope hot sauce, which I don't think is trademark just yet, but what is your hope hot sauce. Sandra? Looking forward.
Sandra Bogelein: I came entirely hopeful out of working on the seventh carbon budget advice, because I think the solutions are really clear, and I think the solutions are like the majority of the solutions for households are things that will make their life better, whether you care about climate or not. So an electric car is a superior technology. It's nicer to drive.
Sandra Bogelein: It saves you money. Having a heat pump makes your makes not only the air quality in your home better, but it also gives you a higher comfort. Adjusting our diet slightly makes us healthier, so I think I think it's good news all about it. We just have to make sure that we find the policies that support us to implement them.
Sandra Bogelein: It's really a kind of the next years where we need that support from government, and we've been very clear about how government can do that.
Matt Hannon: Absolutely. Well, thank you, Sandra, thank you for your time. Well, obviously there's about 3 or 4 other topics. We're going to have to get you back to talk through because there's so many it's been a delight. And we look forward to hearing again from you soon and to hearing more about what comes of the seventh carbon budget.
Matt Hannon: Thank you.
Jen Roberts: Yeah. And the leadership, the leadership that's being shown by the CC here as well. So I think it's going to be really interesting to see what kind of cascades from that. So huge thanks, Sandra. Be great to have you back on.
Sandra Bogelein: Thank you so much.
Matt Hannon: Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of Local Zero. Thank you for listening. And if you've enjoyed the discussion, we'd really appreciate it if you shared the episode with someone who might find it interesting to helping new listeners discover. The podcast is always one of the best ways you can support us.
Jen Roberts: And the other way is to join in the conversation. You can leave a comment on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you're feeling extra generous, then give us a rating or a review because that's super appreciated.
Matt Hannon: We're always on the lookout for new topics, ideas, and guests, so if there's something you'd like us to explore in a future episode, do drop us an email at local 08.com or connect with us on LinkedIn by searching for Local Zero podcast.
Jen Roberts: And thanks to you listeners, just for being part of the local zero community.
Matt Hannon: Until next time, take care.
Jen Roberts: Bye bye now.