Climate Assemblies and Deliberative Democracy: A Global Best Practice Review

With climate change policies increasingly used as a tool for further political polarisation, it is important to explore tools that could help bring the public on board with climate ambition. Climate assemblies, if done to a high standard, can increase community empowerment while rebuilding legitimacy within policy-making from the view of the general public. Whilst climate assemblies are important it is also vital to research theoretical approaches as well as real-world experience of climate assemblies to develop better understanding of how assembly outputs can effectively develop and legitimise climate policy and support participatory democracy. This report is developed by the Just Transition Lab at the University of Aberdeen. It is part of the Just Transition Communities Project led by North East Scotland Climate Action Network Hub and funded by the Scottish Government Just Transition Fund. The project plans to explore how communities in the North East Scotland can be involved in and drive the process of designing, creating, and delivering a just transition. This report aims to inform future climate assemblies initiatives, leading to increased community participation in climate change mitigation and adaptation policy. This report provides a literature review as an introduction to deliberative democracy and climate assemblies. It examines theory and practice in all the relevant aspects of using climate assemblies to increase public awareness of climate change, aid climate policy-making, and increasing the legitimacy and public acceptance of current and future policies. From the design of climate assemblies to participant recruitment, scale, and outcomes – this report provides an overview of theoretical approaches and 14 case studies of climate assemblies to present a rounded view of deliberative democracy in practice.