Climate Assemblies, Multi-level Governance and the Global Climate Crisis

The climate crisis requires action across all levels of governance and involves navigating complex policy problems. Policy makers have responded to the democratic and epistemological challenges this presents by exploring news ways to engage the public, notably through democratic innovations such as citizens’ assemblies. We have witnessed a wave of citizens’ assemblies, at all levels of governance, being used to engage the public in informed climate change deliberation. Advocates of citizens’ assemblies claim they enable governments to engage the public on complex policy problems to support better informed and more legitimate decision making. This paper considers the extent to which the citizens’ assembly method can be applied successfully at different levels of governance. Taking the UK context as a starting point, we examine how citizen assemblies on climate change have been applied at the local, regional, sub-national, national and global level. Our study draws on an analysis across five case studies, including interviews with key actors in the delivery of the assemblies. We consider the implications of different levels of governance for the design and delivery of the assemblies, the capacity of the assembly to impact policy and public debate, and what this may mean for the role of citizens assemblies in climate governance. We identify the opportunities, challenges and constraints that exist in the delivery of climate assemblies across different levels of governance. We conclude with potential lessons for practitioners and researchers toward the delivery and evaluation of climate assemblies at different levels of governance