Our Money, Our Planet

ENGAGING CITIZENS IN THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY THROUGH PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

There is overwhelming evidence that we are in a climate emergency.  It is of maximum importance that we move on from debating the evidence towards taking immediate action.  Given the reluctance of politicians to take decisive action so far this appears to remain a very challenging task.

Many people feel a sense of powerlessness, and a lack of influence, over what is increasingly seen as an existential threat to our own future, and the future of our planet.  However, if we are to try to turn things around, we have to start somewhere. So we have produced a new report.

Our Money, Our Planet outlines some possible ways to make some progress, based on our experience and knowledge of participatory approaches, which put citizens into the driving seat of decision-making whilst improving transparency and governance at a local authority level. One process is Participatory Budgeting (PB). Another is Citizens’ Juries and Assemblies.

Both are discussed within the report. We have drawn on the findings of our series of ‘Our Money, Our Planet’ workshops. We held these workshops across the UK in 2019. Their aim was to explore how Participatory Budgeting might most effectively help to address our impending climate crisis, and its links to a Green New Deal.