FDSD Newsletter, Autumn 2023
Deepening Democracy for the Long Term | By Graham Smith
The following is an extract from ‘Can Democracy safeguard the Future’—By Graham Smith, Polity Press, 2021. Participatory democracy would appear to be a counterintuitive approach to long-term governance. The short-sightedness of the public is widely viewed...
Why understanding what people think is crucial to the next phase of climate policy—Interview with Chris Stark | By Jake Ainscough
Jake Ainscough (pictured on the left) is a Senior Research Associate on the Climate Citizens project at Lancaster University. Climate Citizens is a research project exploring options for opening up climate policy making to the public. He interviewed Chris Stark...
Time to reconcile conflict and collaboration—some insights from mediation | Blog by Andrea Westall
As we move ever closer to 2030 – the arbitrary endpoint for the collectively agreed UN Sustainable Development Goals – and in a year when the commitments of the climate negotiations at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, COP26 will need to be further strengthened,...
Is the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act standing up to the test of time and delivering for future generations? | Blog by Peter Davies
The Wellbeing for Future Generations (Wales) Act became law in 2015. A previous FDSD blog reflected on development of the Act from my perspective as Sustainable Futures Commissioner for Wales from 2011-16, setting out its genesis in the devolution process. This is now...
Beyond COP26: what next on Scotland’s sustainable development journey? | Blog by Paul Bradley
Living in Glasgow has been a somewhat surreal experience in recent weeks. The sounds of megaphones, police horses, and helicopters have been prominent in daily life. World leaders have come and gone, having spent an evening at my local museum. Hundreds of police lined...
Launch of new report and ICEN network on climate engagement
The Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University in Canada has published the report Can Public Participation Accelerate the Transition to Net-Zero?: Innovations and Challenges for Advancing the Field of Climate Engagement. The report aims to inspire...
Localising the Global Goals | FDSD session at UN Global Compact Network conference on Responsible Business and SDGs
The SDGs have only 9 more years to go, but they are still not integrated into local government strategy and delivery in England. To help explore why, and share good practice, FDSD worked with UN Global Compact Network UK, Bristol City Office, and the All-Party...
Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) launched
The European Climate Foundation has launched the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) as a ‘go to’ place for those seeking considered, rigorous and widely-sourced input on the design and implementation of climate assemblies. FDSD’s own Professor Graham...
Leaders call on Prime Minister to create socially just and green recovery from Covid-19
FDSD, together with over 100 companies, universities, charities and trade associations, signed a letter to the UK Prime Minister urging that the recovery from COVID-19 use the Sustainable Development Goals to help “consolidate and future-proof these plans”. It argues...
FDSD welcomes UK Climate Assembly
FDSD has long supported the wider use of participatory and deliberative processes such as citizens’ assemblies in bringing the voice of citizens into political decision making. We are therefore delighted that the first weekend of the UK Climate Assembly has been a...
Populism: consequences for global sustainable development
Populism is changing the shape of democracy in a number of countries around the world, in some cases dramatically. That has an impact on international as well as domestic commitments including those supporting sustainable development. In a briefing paper publishd in...
Shaping the campaign for a UK Future Generations Act
FDSD was delighted to host a workshop at the University of Westminster to develop the campaign for the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act being led by Lord Bird. The event attracted representatives from around 30 organisations, including UK Student Climate Network,...
Activism in a new climate | Conference and theatre, Manchester 29 Apr 2020
Appeals for people to act now in response to the climate emergency surround us. Many of them focus on the responsibility of the individual to act: to eat less meat, to drive less, to fly less. Does this focus on the role of individuals underestimate the challenge of...
Future Generations Podcast | Reasons to be Cheerful with FDSD trustee Andrea Westall
“When they go short-term, we go long-term…” FDSD trustee Andrea Westall recently joined Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd for their Reasons to be Cheerful Podcast, to discuss the urgent need for representation of future generations in today’s politics....
Democratic Reform, Intergenerational Justice and the Challenges of the Long-Term | Essay by Simon Caney
Philosophical essay by Simon Caney on the morality of prosperity, intertemporal politics and a re-imagination of our political life. Political life is dominated by ‘presentism’ and a focus on the short-term. This political myopia is harmful in two important ways....
Extinction Rebellion and democratic renewal—Blog by Graham Smith
2018 witnessed the emergence of a dynamic, new climate change movement—Extinction Rebellion (XR). Building chapters around the UK, Europe and across the world, XR’s most visible action was its day of mass civil disobedience in November, with 6,000 activists shutting...
Promoting public involvement in Wales | Blog by Bethan Smith
Bethan Smith is Goal Convenor for Involvement, Office for the Future Generations Commissioner, Wales. . . . Through the 2015 Well-being of Future Generations Act, all devolved public bodies in Wales are legally required to put sustainable development first; that is,...
With democracy becoming an endangered species, is sustainability in peril? | A reflection by Sara Parkin, November 2018
In 2008, Sara Parkin wrote a provocation for the FDSD: “Are Political Parties getting in the way of the sort of collaborative democracy we need to tackle sustainability? If so, what can we do about it?” Ten years later, she revisits her thinking, “in the...Sign up for newsletter
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