European Citizens’ Energy Efficiency Panel

Posted on February 24, 2024 by Yoram Gat

A three-weekend event convenes 150 allotted EU citizens in Brussels for discussing

how individuals, communities, the public and private sector and others can become more energy efficient in a way that makes the most impact on the climate, economy, jobs, health – and energy bills.

This event, which is billed as “putting citizens at the heart of European policymaking”, is an archetype for how citizen assemblies are being used as an exercise in public relations and a driver for meaningless governance process that serves to generate employment and status for a self-serving political, professional and academic elite. The notion that a body of 150 people can meaningfully generate independent ideas about energy management over 3 weekends is transparently absurd. This is even before questions about whether the purview of energy efficiency even makes sense and how any recommendations produced would be handled by the vast professional political apparatus.

No doubt, though, that events like this would then serve as grist for the citizen assemblies industry and would feed a self-congratulating rhetoric about how “increased involvement of citizen assemblies in our democracies” is leading to a renewal of democracy and is a way to address citizen alienation and cynicism. It is indeed a useful contribution to the money-raising operation of this fledgling industry and to the careers of the experts and academics associated with it.

Filed under: Applications, Sortition |

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3 Responses

  1. Roger Knights, on February 24, 2024 at 11:37 am said:

    The French “Citizens Climate Assembly” where 150 people pretend to be a democracy, while 65 million get sidelined
    By Jo Nova

    It’s the Reality TV version of “Democracy”

    Anthony DELANOIX

    For three years the workers of France revolted in Yellow Vest protests week after relentless week, even though the media ignored them, they kept returning. President Macron had to do something that looked like he was listening. So 150 people won the lucky dip draw to be the actors in a show pretending to be “the People’s Government of France”. Only they, apparently, thought they were doing something important. For nine months these 150 people were supposed to learn climate science and figure out what the other 65 million French citizens would have chosen had they been there. Naturally, they were marinated and baked in approved ClimateThink, and no dissenting scientists or citizens were invited.

    After this intense love in, they came up with a list of policies as big as a phone book, the government picked the ones they were probably going to do anyway, and flicked the ones they weren’t and then proclaimed the citizens had spoken! In theory there was supposed to be a Referendum option at the end, but this, well, nevermind, became just another round of votes in Parliament.

    The 150 were selected from a pool of 225,000 to represent an illusory “cross-section of the French population across their age, gender, education level, socio-professional category, etc etc. ” But if half the population of France are skeptics, no one selected them. Thus we get a pseudo “mini-democracy” where we can avoid all those messy public debates, and 150 people can save the world while the 65 million sleep through it. Turn on the TV, and turn off your brain.

    The Australian ABC loves it of course, and despite getting $3 million dollars to spend yesterday (like every day), it couldn’t find anyone who thought the Citizens Assembly was not wonderful.

    For thirty years the Experts were the only people that mattered, but now the Permitted-Amateurs are here to save the day:

    Asking “amateurs” for policy advice has one big advantage over the standard route of going to the experts, said Professor Curato.

    Non-experts can encounter a problem without preconceived ideas – and this can lead to unexpected new solutions.

    “If you’re a climate economist, you will only see the problem from an economic perspective. If you’re a climate scientist, you only see the problem from a scientific perspective,” she said.

    “Experts don’t have the monopoly of good answers.”.

    Of course, Permitted Amateurs were only taught permitted thoughts:

    It started with a crash course in climate change, presented by the best French experts, [who hadn’t already been sacked, thinks Jo]… to get all the citizens up to speed on the latest science.

    There was also the inevitable conversion of the rare short-lived B-meson subatomic skeptic that only seems to exist in high speed press releases:

    Just like any cross-section of society, their knowledge of climate change varied across the group, and Dr Giraudet said these lectures had an immediate impact on the group. “These were a big shock for many of the participants. Some claim that they came as climate sceptics and after these lectures, they completely changed their mind.”

    Everywhere else in the real world the conversions all go the other way from believer to skeptic, and usually just as they retire.

    The Selected Permitted Amateurs did such a good job they came up with ideas so outlandish they could make Macron look like a sensible man of the centre as he vetoed them or wound them back. They wanted to reduce speed limits, tax big corporations, and stop everyone flying anywhere that wasn’t at least four hours away. Instead it’s just become a ban on trips under two-and-a-half hours.

    Lucky French citizens will now get health warnings on their car adverts. What like, Driving Renaults Melts Glaciers?

    https://joannenova.com.au/2022/10/the-french-citizens-climate-assembly-where-150-people-pretend-to-be-a-democracy-while-65-million-get-sidelined/

    Like

  2. Yoram Gat, on February 24, 2024 at 1:10 pm said:

    Roger,

    The post you linked to is IMO a lazy mixture of various argument – some of which are valid at least to some extent and others just regurgitated nonsense. As an example of the nonsense, the “65 million get sidelined” in the headline serves very well.

    See this for my view of the CCC.

    Liked by 1 person

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