A Citizens’ Assembly on Carbon Pricing?

Art O’Leary, the Irish civil servant who piloted the process that led to same sex marriage and abortion reform in Ireland just visited Australia and has shared some of his experiences.

Citizens Assemblies are excellent vehicles for getting ordinary citizens into informed discussion and decision making on contentious issues. They are often able to cut through the difficulties, find some clarity and make sensible recommendations that governments can implement without further contention.

O’Leary met with Matt Thistlethwaite, Minister for the Republic for the obvious reason that a citizens’ assembly could well cut through some of the more difficult issues and recommend a process for government to act on.

Climate change first

The republic is not an urgent issue for the government at the moment. But climate change is. Getting our greenhouse gas emissions down fast is critical for our transition to a decarbonised economy, and hopefully, to becoming a major exporter of renewable energy.

This is going to be difficult due to many competing interests which have led to many competing policies working against each other. We need a comprehensive solution instead of the many piecemeal policies that are being cobbled together in the hope that they will add up to enough.

Climate Dividends

That comprehensive policy is a carbon price, preferably climate dividends, a policy that returns all revenue raised to households. This is the policy that would steadily reduce our emissions and underpin our transition with the least disruption. It would also be much simpler to implement than piecemeal approach and would leave governments free to deal with the hard to abate emissions and the big task of removing historical emissions from the biosphere.

There is one big problem. Carbon pricing needs to be rehabilitated and put back on the table as a policy worth considering. A citizens’ assembly would be a perfect vehicle for getting us past the politicking that has pushed it off the agenda for so long. It needs to be firmly on the table asap.