Reaching this target will require focus and action from all South Australians, government and industry. The Community Climate Conversation process was designed to raise awareness about the challenge of reaching net zero, to enable reflection about what everyone can do to aid the transition as well as provide advice to government about community priorities for action.
To transition effectively, it will take all South Australians to take action. Government leads the way alongside industry – but community and individuals also need to step up. The Community Climate Conversation process is one which enables the community to begin thinking about what it needs to do to reduce emissions, as well as identify what’s needed from Government.
The Approach
DemocracyCo designed and delivered a process that enabled a deliberative group to go ‘deep’ into the topic, and then a ‘broad’ whole of state community conversation to take place.
We wanted to ensure that citizens helped to set the agenda – by identifying the things that needed to be discussed by everyone to get to net zero. To do this we recruited and facilitated a Community Climate Panel – who identified 6 areas for focus for the net zero conversation with community.
The Panel met in March / April 2023, and their report was provided to the Deputy Premier of South Australia.
The 6 areas of focus from the Community Panel have used as the basis for a Conversation Guide to support communities across the state to talk about the issue using Kitchen Table methodologies. These community conversations will take place during the second half of 2023.
A report will be produced to provide to Government at the end of 2023 which will bring together all of the insights from the community conversations. This report will inform governments’ policy going forward.
I would also like to thank you, Emma and Emily, Craig, Judith and the Minister for the opportunity to be involved in the CCP. I thought democracyCo members showed extraordinary skill in taking a complex topic and a large bunch of people, unknown to each other, and fashioning it/us into a coherent report in a very condensed timeframe. Congratulations! ….the privilege for me was being exposed to younger electors whose thinking seems more supple, bipartisan, and complex than I’m used to amongst my peers.
Lizzie, Community Climate Panel
The project is still ongoing, so impact is yet to be finalised.
The Deputy Premier wrote to the Community Climate Panel in July 2023 and said “I appreciate the hard work and dedication that has gone into their advice on the six big ideas that South Australia needs to pursue to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The report will inform planning by government on the next steps in our journey to a net zero future.”
