Newsletter 5, Australia

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World Wide View on Global Warming was a world first, a global citizen’s consultation on climate change. On one day, people from all walks of life in 38 countries got the chance to represent their communities, families and friends on an issue that effects us all.

World-wide results snap shot

The world wide views results page is an interactive database showing how all countries voted on the day. The Danish Board of Technology have also created a pdf “snapshot of the global results”, which you can get a copy of by going to this link :

Global Results (will open a pdf in a new tab or window in your browser)

This is a pdf of the summary of all the voting and all the international recommendations made on the day. The international recommendations make very interesting reading.

Detailed reporting

The World Wide Views team is working towards two major milestones, one for our Australian event report and one is the global report. The plan is to put the results straight into the hands of our decision-makers, so they can see what ordinary people, without a pre-set agenda, think about how we should participate in climate action on the world stage. Both the detailed Australian report and the full-length world report are scheduled to be released around mid-November, so watch this space.

In the news

Our story in Australia got a run on the Saturday ABC news in all capitals, but it’s continued to travel since, through all the participants local areas. Links to the clippings we have from as far afield as, Bendigo, Pine Rivers, Brisbane, Newcastle and Castlemaine are on the “In the media” page on our website. You can also browse a selection of international media and view the ABC clip.

Reflections on the day:

Meg Corbett, one of our younger participants, from Victoria, at just 21, said about the negotiators going to Copenhagen, “I guess the main message is it’s urgent, because it does feel like an issue that has been swept under the carpet, and it would be nice to actually do something, and change what we do at home.”

Richard Overall, from Melbourne sends the message to political leaders that “there is pretty much a consensus that something has to be done, and hopefully they’ll realise that by acting on it they are acting on behalf of all of us, and we also support them in their desire to do something about this.”

Video and more

We took some footage before the event of participants and sponsors talking about World Wide Views on Global Warming and climate change, which you can see on the global media site, here and here.

We will use some of this as well as footage shot during the event to make a 5-minute clip about World Wide Views, that will be widely available for use by anyone involved. Please let us know at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to have access to the Australian event documentary. We will also provide some footage to the global project, who have funding to put together a documentary on the global process.

How Is World Wide Views related to recent climate news?

The UNFCCC meetings in Bangkok have run from 28 September - 9 October 2009, they are a key milestone heading towards a global climate deal in Copenhagen. Towards the end of the talks Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said "We are now in the eye of the storm... The bricks and mortar of a Copenhagen agreement are being worked on here" in an interview with AFP newswire.  AFP reports that The European Union has pledged to cut its carbon dioxide pollution by 20 percent, and Japan by 25 percent if other countries follow suit. In the US, legislation wending its way through Congress would cut carbon output by the equivalent of about four percent from the 1990 mark.

Compare these figures to our group’s response, which was 89% of the whole group in favour of targets over 25%, in fact 31 % voted for 40% cuts or higher.  The participants’ recommendation was also a legally binding global agreement to keep global warming at less than 2 degrees Celsius and to develop new technology in an ethical and accountable process.

The Australian Newspaper is regularly polling people on Australian climate change issue, and their latest poll of September 22, said that 67% voters support the Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme. The World Wide Views on Global Warming deliberation didn’t delve into individual countries’ policies but it did explore the question “If a new climate deal is made at COP15, should the politicians in your country give high priority to joining it?”, and 90% of people in 38 countries were firmly in favour, voting an unequivocal “yes”. These results come from people being able to review information, deliberate with randomly-selected peers and hear other people's opinions, before making their vote.

Can I use photos in my reports or  website?

Absolutely – the Australian photos are up online on the World Wide Views global media portal. If you need to download original files, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we will give you a password to get the hi-resolution versions.