A citizens’ assembly on climate is pointless if the government won’t listen

When MPs announced a citizens’ assembly on the climate emergency last June, two crucial things hadn’t yet happened: Boris Johnson’s takeover of the Conservative party; and the subsequent general election campaign where the main opposition parties each offered radical plans to address the climate crisis, and then lost to Johnson, who had offered no plan at all. For everyone hoping for action on climate, the election was a particularly bruising experience. First throwing open the door to a previously unthinkable possibility – immediate, concrete plans to fight the crisis, far beyond anything proposed by the inadequate Paris...