Citizen deliberation in Net Zero governance: learning lessons and looking forward
This essay draws on social science evidence to appraises the recent wave of climate assemblies. We look at how they have:
- provided knowledge to policymakers about public preferences and lived experiences;
- encouraged policy action by demonstrating a public mandate;
- improved public trust in leaders and governance institutions;
- and provided a mechanism for oversight and accountability.
We show that the first of these objectives has largely been met, and they have succeeded in demonstrating a mandate by proposals being consistently ahead of existing policy. Climate assemblies can help build trust amongst those taking part, but we found that this dissipates if the commissioning body is not seen to act in light of what the assembly has found. Climate assemblies are also not widely known about, and there is a lack of evidence on how they impact trust perceptions amongst those who do hear of them. Finally, there are very few examples of assemblies being tasked with an oversight or accountability role. We suggest that this is an area that could benefit from further experimentation. We then provide a series of recommendations as to how to further embed climate juries within net-zero governance, so as to improve their ability to contribute to the net-zero transition.
Read more in the open-access article here:
Citizen deliberation in Net Zero governance: learning lessons and looking forward, Ainscough, J., Killeen, L., Lewis, P., Shepherd, A. & Willis, R., Journal of the British Academy, 13(1) (2025): a13 https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/013.a13
