| NSW Community Climate Summit20 - 21 February 2009 Around 90 people from across NSW gathered at the NSW Community Climate Summit, the first of its kind in NSW, to offer recommendations to the NSW Government on how we should respond to climate change. Over two days summit participants heard from a range of expert speakers, engaged in interactive panel sessions and entered a number of small group deliberations to arrive at a set of recommendations focusing on education, health, employment and training, energy, transport, land use and planning, social justice, waste and water, biodiversity and land management and the building industry. The NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, Carmel Tebbutt, opened the summit and the NSW Government will consider the recommendations in the development of its Climate Change Action Plan. Utilising the innovative approach of deliberative democracy, a random selection process was used to invite largely non aligned community members to the summit, who closely matched the NSW community demographic, in relation to age, gender and residential location in NSW (based on ABS data), so that views at the summit were reflective of the wider community. Read about the selection process here Download the summit program here
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Summit panellists
Dr Peter L. Smith, Manager, Climate Change Science, DECC NSW
Dr Gabrielle Kuiper, Sustainability Manager, Investa Property Group
Mr Geoff Evans, University of Newcastle
Ms Sue Lennox, Co- Founder and CEO, OzGREEN Australia
Mr Simon Smith, Deputy Director-General, Climate Change, Policy and Programs, DECC
Dr Mark Diesendorf, Deputy Director Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW
Ms Emma Synnott, Senior Sustainability Consultant, Arup Sustainability Australia
Dr Peter Burn, Associate Director, Public Policy, Australian Industry Group
Opening night speakers
Mr Clarence Slockee, Aboriginal Education Officer, Royal Botanic Gardens
Ms Anna Rose, Australian Youth Climate Coalition
More about the project
  | The NSW Climate Summit project aims to create an informed, active and engaged NSW community, working together to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to actively participate in climate change decision making. The project utilises an innovative community engagement approach to foster involvement of non aligned members of the community in considering how we respond to the challenge of climate change. The use of ‘deliberative democracy’ enables representative groups of everyday citizens in NSW, who have been randomly selected to match a demographic profile, to be included in deliberations that directly contribute to climate change decision making at both a local and state level. Now, more than ever, it is imperative that the voice of the community guides government decision making on climate change. Read more here |
Twelve local forums across NSW
| Following an intensive training program for 30 council staff and community educators across NSW, local deliberative forums were convened during October and November 2008 in Coffs Harbour, Armidale, Uralla, Guyra, Tumut, Swansea, Erina, Pittwater, Warringah, Blacktown, Holroyd and Penrith. With expert assistance approximately 180 community members explored the question How can we work together to respond to climate change? to offer detailed recommendations to local and State government. A NSW Community Feedback Report, detailing the recommendations from all 12 local forums, has been delivered to the NSW Government. Local forum participants were invited to attend the NSW Community Climate Summit. |
