Forging just climate policies: reconciling justice perceptions in citizens’ juries

Demands for ambitious climate policies have been accompanied with calls for a just transition, implying policies that take into account the social justice aspects of the transition. Advocates have regarded citizen participation an essential element of just transition, and especially deliberative mini-publics, like citizens’ assemblies and citizens’ juries, have gained traction as means for ensuring, among others, the fairness of climate policies. Arguing for a just transition begs the question of what is considered just, and who gets to define it. One feasible suggestion is that deliberative mini-publics could act as so called formative agents of justice (Dryzek & Tanasoca 2021), who articulate how abstract justice principles should be applied in a given policy context. This, however, requires that mini-publics are capable of inducing a shared understanding of justice. Earlier research demonstrates that deliberation can increase meta-consensus among mini-public participants, structuring their preferences and clarifying the trade-offs related to a given decision. In the context of just transition, then, could mini-publics produce shared perceptions of the key justice issues related to climate policies? The paper examines this question empirically by studying two citizens’ juries, who discussed different climate measures and their fair implementation. Organized in Finland in 2022, the first jury dealt with carbon-neutral road traffic, whereas the second discussed forest use in relation to climate change mitigation. The study investigates the subjective justice perceptions of the jurors before and after deliberations using Q analysis. It asks, firstly, what participants regarded as the most critical elements of justice, and secondly, whether their perspectives aligned during the jury processes. Initial results suggest that in the traffic jury, attitudes towards private car use became the defining dimension of participants’ positions, whereas in the forest jury a clear structuring dimension did not emerge.