Citizens of Atlanta have been given a voice in the global climate agreement process unfolding at the 15th annual Conference of Parties (COP15) December 7-18. In preparation for the conference, faculty and staff from Georgia Tech held a Citizens Forum on Climate Change on September 26, 2009. While somewhat less concerned about climate change as a problem than forum participants in other U.S. venues, a majority of Atlantans thought that the U.S. should join any agreement reached at COP15.

The forum was part of the World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews), a global citizens' consultation initiated by the Danish Board of Technology that was called "the first world-wide, real-time democratic deliberation of a policy issue" . The citizen deliberations occurred simultaneously in 38 countries around the world and included five U.S. cities. School of Public Policy faculty members Robert Kirkman, Marilyn Brown, and Susan Cozzens organized Atlanta's participation in concert with Mary Hunt at Georgia Tech's Sustainable Energy Institute (SEI). The School and SEI were joined in sponsorship of the event by the Turner Foundation, Inc., the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin offered opening remarks stressing the importance of sustainability for the Atlanta area. The 44 randomly selected Atlanta participants were prepared through written background material. During the forum, they listened to presentations by experts and then expressed their views on the outcomes COP15 needs to produce.

A broadly representative group which excluded climate change activists, 57 percent of Atlanta forum participants thought that punishment for not meeting commitments under a COP15 agreement should be either "severe" or "significant." 48 percent thought that rich countries should reduce their emissions, and an additional 27 percent thought rich countries should have the same emissions targets as developing countries. On this issue, the Atlanta citizens more closely paralleled the opinions of participants around the world. About even percentages of Atlanta participants thought fuel prices should be increased in rich countries to limit greenhouse emissions as thought that prices should not be used to regulate "" with the latter percentage being twice the worldwide number.

The Atlanta citizens were also split on the issue of which countries should pay for a new climate deal, with 40 percent wanting costs evenly distributed, but 30 percent exempting the least developed countries, and 14 percent expressing the view that no commitments should be made. Citizens at the other U.S. sites were more willing to exempt the least developed countries. About two-thirds of the Atlanta participants were in favor of a global financial system for finding ways to mitigate and adapt to climate change, but in the overall World Wide Views consultation, 84 percent of citizens in high income countries were in favor of such a system.

Project coordinator Susan Cozzens, a professor of public policy at Georgia Tech observed, "The citizen participants were very enthusiastic about the process. They wanted the chance to deliberate on other important public issues in this kind of informed and interactive way."

Complete results from the various forum sites are available at www.wwviews.org.