When I first wrote this post (20th September), we were waiting for Rishi Sunak to make his speech widely trailed as watering down or delaying UK action on reducing climate-changing emissions. As I repurpose it for this blog, his speech about limiting local authorities’ powers to make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists is being anticipated. Progress towards net zero is being seen by some in the Conservative Party as a 'wedge' issue in the run up to the next general election, despite polling showing solid cross-party support. But there is something going on: an understandable fear of unfairness or incompetence in policies to reduce emissions, fuelled by deliberate, cynical misinformation. How can governments (whether supra-national, national, regional or local) engage the public better on this issue?
Boaty McBoatface and public engagement
First, an apology. I am going to try to make some serious points here and it may make you groan. Taking all the fun away. Sorry about that.
Second, a confession. I LOVE Boaty McBoatface.
However.
Let's take this from the top. What were NERC's engagement aims? My guess is that the main aim was to 'transmit' the message that NERC does amazing research in the polar regions and that they are getting a new boat. The #NameOurShip campaign has certainly done that. Perhaps they had a secondary 'receive' aim - gathering contact details for people who are interested, or gathering a long-list of names. Since the decision-making power for the actual name does not rest with the public (NERC's press release today says: "NERC will now review all of the suggested names and the final decision for the name will be announced in due course"), the 'collaborate' aim is confined to expressing a preference about the names.
And what's up for grabs? Their rather lovely public website doesn't seem to have a page about the 'rules', so I'm guessing here. Fixed: there will be a boat, it will have a name, NERC will decide the name. Presumably there are some criteria, explicit or implicit. I couldn't find these. I'm guessing there will be some kind of criterion to do with appropriateness, relevance or gravitas which will mean that sadly, RSS Boaty McBoatface will not be painted on the side of this noble vessel. Open: the public can suggest names and express preferences about the names suggested by others. Negotiable: Hmm, nothing really.
So, what went wrong? You might argue, nothing at all - thousands of names were submitted and many more preferences expressed. NERC now has a global audience of people keen to hear the announcement and with some interest in the ship and its work.
This is an engagement process leading to a decision with very low jeopardy. Very few people will be impacted 'highly' by the decision. If the decision were of a different kind - whether or not to change the flood defences in a particular area, for example, or site a geological disposal facility for radioactive waste - then being confused about who is taking which decisions and what their criteria are could lead to anger and conflict.
In my experience, people haven't often reflected on the subtleties of the difference between consultation and shared decision-making, and can assume that a 'voting' mechanism is always a decision-making mechanism. Thinking you are deciding, and then realising you're just being canvassed, can lead to grumpiness. Client teams also sometimes need help coming to a shared view about what the decision-making points are, and who decides, when they put together their engagement plan.
Which is why it's a good idea to be very clear about the process aspects of your engagement:
- What are your engagement aims?
- What's up for grabs?
- Who the stakeholders are, their level of influence and the level of impact the decision will have on them.
- Who is taking which decisions, and on the basis of what criteria?
It's a shame that NERC's process isn't really devolved decision-making. I'd love to see cutting edge science done from the deck of RSS Boaty McBoatface. Perhaps the ship's cat can blog with the pen name Boaty McBoatface. I'd read that.
Update
[6th May 2016]
NERC has announced that it will call the ship the RSS Sir David Attenborough. A great name: Sir David is a bona fide national treasure, and has taught successive generations about the wonder, diversity and jaw-dropping bonkersness of life of this astonishing planet of ours. But still people, including the BBC, are describing the public engagement as a 'vote' (implying decision-making has been devolved) rather than a long-listing or a canvassing of support. And the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which is looking into science communication, are likely to question Professor Duncan Wingham about the initiative.
They didn't take up my suggestion of the ship's cat: they've gone for the even better choice of naming an undersea remote yellow submarine Boaty McBoatface . Which I think is a great way to acknowledge the public's input and maintain the interest.
Environmental justice - from Kendal to Kiribati
The justice thread continues. We were invited to think about environmental justice. Is environmental concern the privilege of those who don’t have to worry about oppression, poverty and the daily grind? Or are environmental problems yet another way in which the privileged dump on the poor?
And who gets to ask and answer these questions?
The questions drew me back to connections between justice and climate change, and my own role as a facilitator of public and stakeholder engagement.
Climate change is having a disproportionate effect on the poorest people in the poorest countries
A few years ago I was lucky enough to be invited to facilitate a two-day workshop for human rights lawyers and climate activists. I’ve blogged about a process aspect of that event here.
I met Maria Tiimon there. She’s from Kiribati - one of those stunningly beautiful Pacific nations that cartoons of desert islands are based on. All coconut trees, blue skies and silver sand.
But it won’t be for long. Here’s Anote Tong, President of the Republic of Kiribati, addressing the 106th session of the Council of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
Why the IOM? Because it seems likely that migration is the future for Kiribati. President Tong said in 2013 "For our people to survive, then they will have to migrate. Either we can wait for the time when we have to move people en masse or we can prepare them—beginning from now ..."
Andrew Teem is the senior policy advisor on climate change to the Kiribati government. See him interviewed here.
When people talk about climate justice, it’s forced migration and the creation of refugees due to extreme weather and chronic climatic changes that they have in mind.
It’s not just small island states. Another country where people are suffering now is Bangladesh.
The Environmental Justice Foundation has gathered witness testimony and data showing how flooding is displacing farmers. EJF talks about “significant damage to vital infrastructure, widespread devastation to housing, reduced access to fresh water for drinking, sanitation and irrigation, and rising poverty and hunger caused by increasingly extreme weather events and the gradual but sustained deterioration in environmental security”.
Establishing that the impacts of climate change have a human rights dimension was very important to this group of lawyers, and the idea is gaining traction.
Poorer people are hit harder
Closer to home, the UK has been inundated by flooding, likely to be caused by extreme weather exacerbated by climate change.
Over the last five years, much of my stakeholder engagement work has been on UK flooding and the best ways to reduce the risks to people from flood events.
There are a couple of distinct “justice” issues here, which come up in workshops and public meetings, and add to the emotional heat.
One is that people who are already disadvantaged (poorer, disabled or caring for small children) tend to suffer most when there is a flood and find it harder to get back on their feet. It could be as simple as not having insurance like some people in Kendal, or a car to transport you to a safe place, or savings to tide you over so you don’t have to get a loan at sky-high interest.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has done a lot of work on this. They say that people's vulnerability to the impacts of climate change is mode worse by “income inequalities, social networks and social characteristics of neighbourhoods."
In the case of heatwaves, social factors include: social isolation; loss of public spaces; fear of crime, which leaves people unwilling to leave their homes or open their windows; and inflexible institutional regimes and the lack of personal independence in nursing homes. A variety of social factors affect the capacity of households to prepare for, respond to and recover from flooding. Low-income households are less able to make their property resilient, and to respond to and recover from the impacts of floods. The ability to relocate is affected by wealth; so also is the ability to take out insurance against flood damage. Social networks affect the ability of residents to respond to flooding – for example, through providing social supports.”
Elsewhere, JRF says:
“A mix of socioeconomic and geographical factors also create spatial distributions of vulnerability: lower-income groups living in poorer-quality housing in coastal locations are disproportionately affected by coastal flooding, while disadvantaged groups living in urban areas with the least green space are more vulnerable to pluvial flooding (flooding caused by rainfall) and heatwaves.
Tenants are more vulnerable than owner occupiers because they cannot modify their homes, so are less able to prepare for and recover from climate events.”
The second kind of justice is the “just deserts” aspect. “The wealthiest 10 per cent of households are responsible for 16 per cent of UK household and personal transport emissions, while the poorest 10 per cent are responsible for just 5 per cent.” Also according to the JRF. It’s not just ironic, it’s unjust. Like the people of Kiribati and Bangladesh, in the UK it’s the historically low-emitters of greenhouse gases who are getting the harshest impacts of climate change.
Who goes to public meetings?
Another aspect of (environmental) justice which people in my field can’t ignore - although the solutions are hard to find - is the unequal access to decision-making or decision-influencing processes like consultations or public meetings about environmental questions like transport strategies, pollution, waste, development, flood defences, emergency planning for extreme events, protection of wildlife and wild places.
I’d like to find out more about this (your comments with links to demographic studies are welcome). What are the demographic patterns and what are the effective ways of engaging people who are typically less likely to be engaged? In my partial and anecdotal experience, public meetings or community workshops during the working day are most likely to be attended by retired people, ex-professionals with a high level of confidence in and familiarity with formal decision-making processes. Whatever time of day the meeting, people with caring responsibilities (who are more likely to be women) are less able to come along. People working three part-time jobs to get by? I’d be surprised.
As public bodies embrace social media and the “digital first” approach, a new set of people may be engaged (at a guess, younger, busier) but another set (older, poorer, with less access to e-communications) are systematically excluded.
It’s the responsibility of those who are convening the engagement, to notice these patterns and make efforts to hear the perspectives and preferences of those who seem to have been unwittingly excluded. To do otherwise would be unjust.