The Core Assembly
In 2021 the Core Assembly brought together 100 people from around the world, a snapshot of the planet's population.
They learned about and discussed the climate and ecological crisis, and presented proposals at the COP26 climate conference in November 2021.
How were participants chosen?
We then recruited local community organizations as close as possible to each point. We call them community hosts. These are trusted organizations in local communities that bring people together around common activities and beliefs, such as community centers, public libraries, cultural venues, sports clubs, co-working spaces, faith-groups, and educational institutions, among others.
These community hosts (alongside translators and note-takers) accompanied each participant through the Assembly.
Community hosts then recruited a recommended 4-6 local potential participants, representing the diversity of their community. This was mostly done by having conversations on the street, and by door-knocking, as these methods could be used consistently anywhere in the world, to make sure recruitment was not biased towards mobile phone ownership, or those who have a formal address.
We then ran a second lottery (a sortition) selecting the final participants from the pool of 675 possible candidates. This was done using the free, open source code, Stratify Select.
This provided us with a final 100 assembly members, proportionally representative of the world's population by gender, age, geography, attitude toward climate change, and educational level.
Equality: anyone on the planet could be chosen
Representation & Diversity: the Assembly should be a microcosm of the globe
Inclusion: we will work to eliminate any barriers to participation
Transparency: the algorithms, code, tools and processes are fully open
Equal Compensation: everyone who participates will be compensated and valued equally
Learning: this has never been done before. This is a process of learning and improvement as we work towards holding a 1,000-person assembly in the future
Timetable
The Core Assembly members spent 68 hours together over 11 weeks between Oct 7th and December 18th 2021, understanding the climate and ecological crisis, reviewing possible future scenarios and developing principles to guide policy-makers.
See the detailed process here.
The question
This year, the Global Assembly deliberated on the following question: “How can humanity address the climate and ecological crisis in a fair and effective way?”
The Global Assembly’s Knowledge and Wisdom Committee chose the framing question. The purpose of the Committee is to ensure that the Global Assembly’s learning phase is grounded in evidence.
Learning
To support the learning journey of the Assembly Members, information was provided in two ways: via an information booklet and video recorded presentations.
During block 1 and block 2, the Assembly Members explored the content of the information booklet developed by the Knowledge and Wisdom Committee.
During block 3, they heard from speakers and witnesses chosen by the Knowledge and Wisdom Committee.
These videos can be viewed here.
Proposals
Core Assembly members both observed and spoke at COP26 and went on to agree a formal declaration. This will inform a final report on the 2021 Global Assembly, which will be released around March 2022, and presented at international governance forums throughout the year.