Lesson video

Hello.

My name's Mrs. Tomassi and I'm gonna be working through with you on your citizenship lesson today.

So hopefully, you're all settled, you've got everything you need for the lesson, and if that's the case, then we'll get started.

The title of today's lesson is "Should Environmental Issues Be Decided by Referendum?" And this forms part of the unit on how can politicians involve citizens in direct decision making? Hopefully, by the end of the lesson today, you're gonna be able to create a reasoned argument whether environmental decisions should be decided by referendum.

There are gonna be two key words in the lesson today.

If you look out for 'em, they're gonna be in bold, and if you ever need to, you can refer back to them here.

We'll go through them together now.

So first is referendum.

Now, that is a general vote by the electorate on a single political issue, which has been referred to them for a direct decision.

It is a form of direct democracy.

The second key word is citizens' assembly.

Now, this is a group of people who are brought together to learn about, discuss, and make recommendations on a specific issue, such as climate change.

As I said, if you ever need to and you wanna refer back to them, they are here.

So we'll make a start on the first learning cycle.

This is how are environmental decisions made in the UK? So you can start thinking about that, but before we think about that, what actually are environmental decisions? What is it about? Any ideas? I think a bit of a clue there, if you know much about the environment, you might have some ideas, but what do we mean when we say decisions? So environmental decisions involve any decision that is made by government that will impact the environment, so topics include things like climate change, plastic waste and recycling, transport and emissions, energy policies, biodiversity, nature protection, and pollution and air quality.

Obviously, there's lots more as well, but this kind of gives you an idea.

Hopefully, this was the kind of thing you started to think about.

Can you think of anything now of what kind of decisions government might make to do with those topics? Have you got ideas about this? So in the UK, most environmental decisions are made by the UK Parliament.

Can you think why that is? What is the UK? What type of democracy? It's a representative democracy.

Now, that means that members of the electorate pick for a representative to make decisions on their behalf.

That's why the decisions are made by the UK Parliament and this includes environmental decisions.

So some of the things that they do is they might make new laws.

They're gonna set national targets, funding programmes, holding the government to account and this could be on any of those topics that we looked at previously, like climate change, plastic recycling, et cetera, and how they respond, all of those actions that they take shapes how the UK responds to environmental challenges.

Laura says here, "In 2023, the UK government passed a law that banned single-use plastics such as cutlery." And this is an example of how the UK government are trying to meet targets, passing laws that impact environmental decisions.

You might be able to think of some more examples as well.

We've gone through that the UK government is responsible.

Now, they recognise the significance of it and it has recognised the impact of climate change for many years, but the main significant official action was taken in 2008.

This was when the Climate Change Act came in and it was the first law in the world to commit a country to addressing climate change.

The Act set a target to reduce the UK's emissions by 80% by 2050.

Now, if you know much about emissions, you might be saying, hmm, I've heard of different years.

Remember, this was 2008, so this was the first time it was set.

It has been updated and changed since then and this is a really good example of some environmental decisions that are made by the UK government.

So in 2019, this is what we're saying in terms of it being updated.

The UK government updated the Climate Change Act to set a target for net-zero emissions by 2050 and what this is known as is the Net Zero Strategy.

Lucas says there, "What does net zero mean?" Have you got any ideas? Now, Laura says, "Net zero means the total greenhouse gas emissions produced equals the amount removed.

This helps to limit global warming and climate change." Now, since the original net zero target was set, there have been several updates and new environmental decisions.

Some of these include things like 2023 Powering Up Britain: The Net Zero Growth Plan, and again, it was introducing more strategies and policies to reach that net zero 2050 goal.

2024, the environmental commitments by the current Labour government announced more decisions focused on renewable energy and environmental protection and this shows you that environmental decisions aren't just made once, so that Climate Change Act in 2008, they're constantly updated and new legislation is created and developed over time to meet the current needs and requirement.

Now have a think.

So does the UK deal with environmental decisions just on their own or do they involve other countries or do they work with other countries? What do you think about this one? Now, if you said they work with other countries, well done, because it is.

You might know that the UK is a member of the UN, the United Nations.

Now, they hold something called a COP summit, which unites countries on action about climate change.

So at COP21, which was in 2015, 196 parties adopted the Paris Agreement.

Now, this was historic, because it was the first time that, internationally, there was countries have agreed to take action on climate change.

Now, part of this became a legally-binding international treaty on climate change.

So those countries that were involved are committed legally to climate action.

So what is the Paris Agreement? Have you heard of what it includes or what it involves? Now, it aims for all the countries to work together to limit the global temperature rise, so then you've got the specific figures there, but just to give you that idea, it's this idea of limiting the amount that the world temperature is rising by.

Then it aims to achieve a balance between greenhouse gas emissions and removal, so that's that net zero and that's those net zero targets that we were talking about earlier.

Then countries submit plans outlining their climate action every five years.

It strengthens countries' abilities to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Finally as well, it's looking for the high-income countries supporting the low-income countries to help them reduce climate change impact, strengthening resilience and adaptions.

So can you see there how those different countries are working together and they're coming together to make those environmental decisions? Now, because, if you remember we said this is legally binding, it impacts the UK, 'cause the UK and the UK government need to ensure that those environmental decisions are included when they're updating the laws in UK.

So how does the UK government work with international organisations to help make environmental decisions, A, by funding programmes in the UK, B, by attending global climate protests, C, by taking part in international agreements, D, by creating their own laws? How did you get on? Hopefully, you realised that that is C.

Now, they do fund programmes and create their own laws, but that's not how they work with international organisations.

That's something that they do nationally.

So this moves us onto the first task.

Jun says here, "The UK Parliament makes all environmental decisions alone and the Climate Change Act 2008 is the only way it tackles global climate change.

The Paris Agreement does not affect the UK's laws, because it is an international deal, not something the UK has to follow." Jun's confused about how environmental decisions are made in the UK.

Explain to Jun why both the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Paris Agreement contribute to addressing the impacts of climate change in the UK.

Now, you might want to take your time and pause here and try and work out where Jun's got it confused, and then explain why the Paris Agreement and the Climate Change Act do impact climate change in the UK.

Once you've got your response, if you unpause and we'll go through the feedback together.

So how did you get on? Now, you could've had something like this.

So the Climate Change Act 2008 is a UK law that sets legally-binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It's a major way that the UK tackles the impact of climate change, but the UK does not make all environmental decisions on its own.

The Paris Agreement, signed in 2015, is a global climate treaty where countries, including the UK, agreed to work together to limit global warming to below 2%.

Although it's an international agreement, it influences UK decisions.

For example, in 2019, the UK updated its targets and commitments to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Hopefully, you had something similar to that and were able to show the impact of the Climate Change Act and the Paris Agreement on how environmental decisions are made in the UK.

Now, we'll use that knowledge as we move into the second learning cycle, so now we're gonna look at how else can environmental decisions be made? So hopefully, you've got an idea now of what happens in the UK.

We're gonna start to look at some other ways.

So Lucas says, "Are environmental decisions only made by the government?" What do you think about that? Now, not all environmental decisions are made by the government.

In some countries, governments use direct democracy to give citizens a direct voice in shaping environmental policy.

Have you heard about this before? Maybe you've got some examples.

So two methods that they can do this include citizens' assemblies and referendums. Hopefully, you remember they were our key words, so we had a quick look at 'em, but we'll find out properly what they involve now.

So Switzerland is direct democracy.

This means citizens take part in regular referendums to help decide national policies.

Now, some of these referendums include environmental decisions.

A referendum works by offering a public vote, and then what happens in Switzerland, the citizens are asked to vote yes or no to a proposal.

If the majority say yes, the proposal comes in.

If the majority say no, then it gets rejected.

To show you the examples of some of the environmental decisions that they make in Switzerland, it includes things like 2023, the Climate and Innovation Act and the 2024 Biodiversity Initiative, the 2025 Environmental Responsibility Initiative.

We'll have a look and find out what these involve.

So as we were saying, the outcome of a referendum affects whether a proposal is turned into law or not, so in Switzerland, the results directly shape environmental action, or if the majority reject it, it could block it.

So the 2023 referendum, that was on Climate and Innovation Act, this set a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

It was approved by voters and led to the target being legally binding.

Does this sound familiar, this Act? Because we've seen something similar.

The UK also set the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 and that was made by the UK government, so in Switzerland, they've come to the same conclusion, but the final decision was made by the citizens, not directly by the government.

Next was the 2024 referendum on Biodiversity Initiative.

Now, this aimed to increase funding and protection of natural habitats and endangered ecosystems, but this one was rejected by voters, so didn't pass, so didn't become a law, and then the 2025 referendum on environmental responsibility aimed to reduce consumption and economic activity to sustainable levels within 10 years.

Again, this was rejected by voters and didn't come in, so what this shows is there are some benefits and there's some challenges to using referendums. So some of the benefits include it raise awareness.

Now, the referendums encourage public debates, news coverage.

To give you an example, in Switzerland, it meant students discussed sustainability and climate policy ahead of the 2025 vote, so there was a lot of awareness of the issues raised.

Can you think of any other benefits? So some other benefits include it involves the public.

Citizens get a direct say and that strengthens public support for environmental laws, because if the majority agree with it, then probably the majority are gonna be happy to support it.

Now, can you think of any challenges? So why might using referendums be difficult with environmental issues? Having a look back at them two that got rejected, have a think.

Were they quite simple to understand what was going on? Because sometimes environmental issues are quite scientific and technical, so because of the complexity, it can mean that it's hard for everyone to really understand the benefits or the cons of voting for it, so to give you an example, in the 2025 Environmental Responsibility Initiative, it was partly rejected because people didn't fully understand or trust the details that were involved in it.

And then also, sometimes voters focus on short-term impacts, so the immediate cost or the personal impact, rather than the long-term environmental benefits.

So in 2024, the Biodiversity Initiative, it was rejected, despite having really good long-term benefits.

Can you tick whether the statements are pros or cons of using referendums to decide environmental decisions? So you've got citizens have a direct say, which ensures decisions reflect the will of the people.

Is that a pro or a con? Next one, you've got voters may focus on immediate costs, rather than long-term environmental benefits.

And finally, some environmental issues may be too complex for the general public to fully understand.

See if you can work out which is which.

Did you manage to get it? So the first one was a pro, second one was a con, and the final one is a con as well.

Now, Lucas says, "Are there any other ways citizens get involved in environmental decisions without a referendum?" What do you think about this? Have you heard of any other ways before? You may have heard of a group called Extinction Rebellion.

Now, they're an environmental protest group that campaign to demand urgent action on climate change and biodiversity loss.

Now, they believe the current political system is not doing enough to tackle the climate crisis.

They support the idea that the UK government should be guided by a citizens' assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Yes, we had citizens' assembly as a key word, but do you really know what's involved or what it is? If you're not too sure, we'll have a look through an example of one now.

So in 2022, Ireland held a Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss.

It was made up of 99 randomly-selected members of the public and what they did was they came together to explore how Ireland should respond to the biodiversity crisis, and as part of this citizens assembly, they learned from experts, scientists, communities.

They went on field trips to go out and see the impact of the biodiversity loss firsthand, so they could find out exactly what it was and what was going on, and then the members came together to deliberate on some solutions to this problem.

What they ended up recommending was stronger environmental laws and funding, amending the Irish Constitution to include a right to a healthy environment, and clearer responsibilities for government action.

Now, there was a lot more as well, so if you're interested in finding out more, you could always go onto the website and have a look at the specific Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss, and then you could read through and find some more about it.

So Lucas says here, "But what about young people? They'll be the most affected by environmental decisions, so their voices should be included too." Well, that's quite a fair point.

What do you think about that? Should the young people have been included in the citizens' assembly? Now, if you thought yes, well actually, rather than including them in that one, they ran their own, and so what they did was they ran a Children and Young People's Assembly on Biodiversity Loss.

Now, this was to hear specifically the younger generation's views.

It involved 35 young people.

Again, they were randomly selected, so they are aged as young as seven all the way up to 17, so they ensured a wide range of voices were heard.

They met for two weekends and they worked together to creating actions for change.

Again, this is a really interesting use of a citizens' assembly, but for young people.

They've got a lot of resources and videos that they've produced from this, so again, if you are interested, this is a really good one to go and have a look at.

It's laid out really clearly and you can have a look exactly and see the process that they went through.

So the same thing, they came up with different actions to respond to the biodiversity crisis and one of theirs include raising awareness by making biodiversity and climate education mandatory for all children and young people.

Now, with the Citizens' Assembly in Ireland, what happens is the recommendations all went through, so they went through for the Citizens' Assembly and for the Children and Young People's Assembly, and then once the recommendations and reports went through, then the Irish government created a report to respond to both of them.

So the Citizens' Assembly had 159 recommendations in and the Children and Young People's Assembly had 58 calls to actions, so that's a lot that they had to look through and they went through and they created a report and responded to every single one of them.

Again, if you are interested, you can follow this online.

They've got easy-to-read reports, where you can see all the responses and you can see the actions and whether the government has implemented them or not.

What do you think? Do you think the government implemented their ideas? So the report showed that over 90% of recommendations were either implemented or in progress and what this shows is actually public involvement can lead to real change in government policies.

So as I said earlier, if you are interested, you might wanna take some time to go and have a look, but if you're ready to move on, we can start to look at now the benefits of citizens' assemblies.

So from what we've looked at, can you think what might be good about a citizens' assembly, specifically in terms of environmental decisions? So if we have a look, it promotes change.

So in the example of the Irish Citizens' Assembly, over 90% of the recommendations were either implemented or currently in progress.

That's a lot of change that is being promoted.

Next, it raises awareness, so in the example of the Children and Young People's, that actually led to additional funding for educational resources and the creation of an impact report, which again, helps more people learn about and understand about biodiversity loss.

Of course though, there are gonna be challenges to citizens' assemblies.

So can you think, from any of the stuff that we've looked through, what those challenges might be? So things like its slow implementation.

Don't know if you noticed the dates, but we were looking there, the Citizens' Assembly took place in 2022 to 2023 and the response from the government was in 2024.

Obviously, as well, there was a huge amount of recommendations and calls to action, so it all takes time to just even read through, to respond, and then you've got to implement it as well.

So it actually, still in 2025, this is still an ongoing piece of work to implement and put through some of those changes.

Another downside is there's actually no guarantee of action.

Yes, in this case in Ireland, over 90% were implemented or in progress, but a citizens' assembly does not mean that the government has to listen or implement the recommendations, so in some cases, actually the outcome may not lead to meaningful change.

Can you tick whether the statements are pros or cons of using citizens' assemblies to decide environmental decisions? The first one, it can take a long time for recommendations to be reviewed and acted on.

The second one, citizens' assemblies can lead to real change.

And the third one, governments are not required to act on recommendations.

Are they pros or cons? So that first one is a con, the second's a pro, and the third is a con as well.

This moves us on to the final task for today.

So you've got a statement here, "The UK should hold referendums on all major environmental issues." How far do you agree with this statement? Mark an X on the arrow below and explain your reason and one thing that is good to hear, you could use this as an opportunity to do some good practise for the GCSE.

Remember, as part of the GCSE, it's good to be able to argue both sides.

Now, you might agree with this statement or you might disagree, but can you think of the counter-argument as well? This helps you to expand your writing further and show that you are able to critically analyse your viewpoint.

This means that you then include a counter-argument and, if you can as well, always try and add a conclusion at the end.

But if you would just like to stick to the task and just give a reason, you can always do that as well, but if you want to, you've got that way to expand it.

So if you take some time now, if you pause, you might wanna structure it out with your ideas, and then write it out.

Once you're ready, if you unpause and we can go through the feedback together.

So how did you get on? Now, actually it doesn't matter where your viewpoint is.

You can agree.

You could really disagree.

Now, you might've talked about referendums, but you might've talked about why the government should make decisions.

You may have included a different option, such as using citizens' assemblies.

What this is showing you is just what a strong structure looks like.

So if you agreed, you could have said something like, I strongly agree, 'cause environmental issues have a huge impact on people's lives now and in the future, so it's fair that the public should have a direct say.

Holding referendums would make the government more accountable, encourage people to become informed about environmental policies.

It could lead to stronger public support for actions, since decisions would reflect the will of the people.

That's obviously one paragraph, and again, if you chose to do the counter-arguments, you might've had two paragraphs in this structure, so similar.

You might've also included something like this.

I disagree because holding a referendum on every environmental issue would be expensive and time-consuming.

Many environmental decisions are complex and require expert knowledge that the general public might not have.

Other forms of public involvement, such as citizens' assemblies, might be better because they ensure people have a voice and better understanding of the complex issues without the cost and delays of frequent referendums. Again, this shows you the other side.

You could've taken it a step further as well and included in some specific examples, you know, such as the 2022 Irish Citizens' Assembly or some of the referendums that are used in Switzerland, to really help make your point on this issue.

So if you wanted to, you could always go back over this and you could look at structuring it that you have your two paragraphs with your specific examples and a conclusion as well, if you really wanted to do some extra practise for the GCSE.

If not, we are now going to summarise.

So environmental decisions involve any decision made by a government that will impact the environment.

This includes the impacts of climate change and biodiversity.

In the UK, environmental decisions are made by the UK Parliament.

They pass laws on issues such as the Climate Change Act 2008.

The UK government works with other international organisations, such as the UN, to make environmental decisions.

Some countries choose to involve citizens in environmental decisions.

This includes Switzerland's referendums and Ireland's use of citizens' assemblies and that brings us to an end.

So hopefully, you have a better understanding now of what environmental decisions and issues are and maybe you've decided where you stand on if these should be decided by a referendum or maybe they shouldn't.

So thanks so much for working with me today and enjoy the rest of your day.