A Citizen Assembly Pilot on Energy Transition in Lebanon

与全球南方其他一些小国一样，由于依赖化石燃料的能源基础设施老化，黎巴嫩面临着长期的能源短缺。这导致黎巴嫩各地弱势群体的能源贫困，其中包括来自叙利亚的100多万难民，以及之前流离失所浪潮中已经在难民营的人。这一能源系统的未来正受到两种观点的争论，一种观点认为，未来从尚未开发的天然气盆地中新发现的天然气供应将解决能源危机，另一种观点认为，新的社会运动已经出现，呼吁使用绿色能源，以结束柴油发电机造成的日常停电和极高水平的污染。我们将在黎巴嫩首都贝鲁特的哈姆拉地区开展一项以能源转型为重点的公民大会形式的试点研究和参与倡议，我们一直在努力收集广泛的家庭和建筑数据集。这为公众提供了一个机会，在这个国家正在谈判进行新的能源改革的关键时刻，利用救济中心研究人员收集的知识和能源数据。因此，我们寻求通过更大规模、系统、持续参与和审议的公民科学方法，即公民大会，为黎巴嫩的能源危机找到共同设计的解决方案（可持续发展目标7确保所有人都能获得负担得起的、可靠的、可持续的现代能源）。这次公民大会的主要目标是：1。将于2019年2月在贝鲁特举行为期一天的能源转型公民大会（CA），随机选择50名（代表性样本）参与者。在一个结构性变革的机会出现的时刻，CA将为解决公共服务能源供应的长期问题提出新的自下而上的想法。a. RELIEF研究人员将与对地方和国家技术和政策挑战具有具体知识的能源专家一起介绍他们收集的数据。B.进行参与者主导的讨论，讨论参与者及其家庭在日常生活中如何经历这些挑战。C.工程师和创新者将提出一系列可行的工程、政策和法律解决方案，以及每种解决方案的成本和收益。d.最后，参与者将在更广泛的实践网络/社区的专家的协助下进行进一步的讨论和审议活动，就最适合他们的需求和他们遇到的问题的能源解决方案提出建议。2. 根据能源、能源使用、环境数据、案例研究和专家意见，用英语和阿拉伯语制作关于能源转型的本地化和可公开访问的简报和演讲，供公民大会使用。3. 制作一个关于如何组织、组织和开展关于可持续发展目标的公民集会的工具包，以该试点为例，说明所需的材料、研究和准备工作。对能源贫困社区和学术界的好处和预期影响将在于找到相互对话和与决策者对话的方式，扩大民间社会组织的工作，加速实现可持续发展七国目标和与健康、环境和就业有关的其他可持续发展目标。公民大会将使我们能够制作一个工具包，说明如何将该方法扩展到其他可持续发展目标，希望能鼓励世界各地的学者使用该方法。它将通过扩大和扩大CA的使用，作为学者、专家、活动家和居民之间的审议过程，为研究方式的方法论创新如何产生和传播提供反思和有用的见解。CA还将直接通知一个关于能源转型的MOOC，该MOOC将在今年晚些时候由RELIEF Centre单独开发。

Lebanon, like some other small countries in the Global South faces chronic energy shortages from an ageing energy infrastructure that relies on fossil fuels. This has led to energy poverty across Lebanon for vulnerable groups including over a million refugees from Syria and those already in refugee camps from prior waves of displacement. The future of this energy system is being contested between visions that imagine a future where newly-discovered gas supplies from an untapped gas basin will solve this energy crisis, to the new social movement that has emerged calling for green energy to end the daily power cuts and extremely high level of pollution caused by diesel generators. We will be running a pilot research and engagement initiative in the form of a citizen assembly focusing on energy transition in the locality of Hamra in the Lebanese capital of Beirut where we have been working to collect an extensive household and building data set. This presents an opportunity for the public to use the knowledge and energy data gathered by The RELIEF Centre researchers at a critical moment where new energy reforms in the country are being negotiated. We therefore seek to find co-designed solutions to the energy crisis in Lebanon (SDG 7 ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all) through a more scaled up, systematic, consistently engaged, deliberative method of citizen science, namely a citizen assembly. The main objectives of this citizen assembly are:1. to conduct a one-day citizen assembly (CA) on energy transition in Beirut in February 2019 for 50 randomly selected (representative sample) of participants. The CA will produce new bottom-up ideas for solutions to a chronic problem to public service energy provision at a moment where an opportunity for structural change has emerged. a. RELIEF researchers will present data they have gathered, alongside energy experts with specific knowledge of local and national technical and policy challenges. b. conducts a participant-led discussion about how these challenges are experienced by participants and their households in everyday life. c. engineers and innovators will present a range of available engineering, policy and legal solutions, and the costs and benefits of each solution. d. Finally, participants will engage in further discussion and deliberation activities facilitated by experts from the wider network/community of practise to produce recommendations about the energy solutions most appropriate for their needs and the problems they experience. 2. to produce briefings and presentations of a localised and publicly accessible narrative about energy transitions in English and Arabic to be used during the citizen assembly based on data on energy, energy use, environmental data, case studies and expert views. 3. to produce a toolkit about how to organise, frame and conduct citizen assemblies on the SDGs using this pilot as an example of the kind of material, research, and preparation required. The benefits and expected impacts for the energy poor communities and the academic community will be in finding ways to talk to each other and to policy makers, amplifying the work of civil society organisations and accelerating the achievement of SDG7 and other SDGs relating to health, the environment and jobs.The citizen assembly will allow us to produce a toolkit on how to expand the method to other SDGs which will hopefully encourage its use by academics across the world. It will offer reflexive and useful insights into how methodological innovation in the way research is produced and disseminated by expanding and scaling up the use of CA's as a deliberative process between academics, experts, activists and residents. The CA will also directly inform a MOOC on energy transitions that will be developed separately by the RELIEF Centre later in the year.