Citizens' Climate Assemblies: Understanding public deliberation for climate policy

Summary

This report presents an in-depth analysis of climate deliberation, focussed on the UK’s national Climate Assembly, France’s Convention Citoyenne, and regional UK processes. Citizens’ assemblies on climate change are a promising means by which citizens can be placed at the core of a democratic decision-making process to develop or advise on policies. In this report we show that a diverse cross-section of citizens can come together with minimal prior understanding and conclude in favour of farreaching climate policies, often going further than polls or politicians’ assumptions about public opinion suggest is possible. All the same, there is no single way to run a citizens' assembly on climate change: the ways in which they are designed has an important influence on assembly outcomes and recommendations.

Creators/Authors

Catherine Cherry

Stuart Capstick

Christina Demski

Claire Mellier

Lucy Stone

Caroline Verfuerth

Tags

climate citizen juries citizen assemblies