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CHAPTER 11
Citizens’ Assemblies and Juries on Climate
Change: Lessons from Their Use in Practice
Rebecca Wells
Highlights Citizen assemblies and juries (CAJs) must meet generally
accepted standards and be citizen-led to genuinely and credibly engage
citizens. Agreed implementation and follow-up procedures should be
established to ensure CAJs legitimately inform policymaking. CAJs are
not a panacea to public participation on climate change and much more
needs to be done beyond them.
Keywords Citizen assembly ·Citizen jury ·Climate change ·
Democratic deliberative process ·Citizen engagement
Introduction
Globally, 64% of people believe there is a ‘climate emergency’ (UNDP,
2021). Since Bristol declared a ‘climate emergency’ in November 2018,
over 300 councils and the UK Parliament have followed suit (Declare A
R. Wells (B)
London School of Economics, London, UK
© The Author(s) 2022
C. Howarth et al. (eds.), Addressing the Climate Crisis,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 3-030-79739-3_11
119
120 R. WELLS
Climate Emergency, 2020). In response to this climate emergency narra-
tive, many national and local governments have turned to deliberative
democratic processes such as citizen assemblies and juries (CAJs) as tools
to gauge public opinion to inform their responses to the climate crisis
(Mellier-Wilson & Toy, 2020). Deliberative processes remain relatively
marginal, but CAJs on climate change specifically have recently emerged
in the UK and abroad (Devaney et al., 2020). CAJs can significantly
contribute to engaging more deeply with the public on the climate crisis
and creating more inclusive, citizen-driven policymaking and are widely
supported in academia and by activist groups such as Extinction Rebel-
lion (XR) (Devaney et al., 2020). However, it is important to critically
analyse how CAJs are driving change in practice. To enable learning and
improve future CAJs, this chapter identifies how they could be improved
by assessing their quality and the impact CAJs have had on policymaking.
Academic and grey literature on the use of CAJs as a method
to increase public engagement in climate policymaking was reviewed,
followed by a comparative analysis of the reports produced by completed
CAJs and the responses of governing bodies in the UK as well at the
national level in the UK, Ireland and France. Areas where their use in
practice differed from each other and deviated from the literature were
identified in order to determine how future processes could be improved
to enhance their ability to increase public engagement on climate change.
Are Climate Assemblies and Juries
Useful in Tackling Climate Change?
Tools of deliberative democracy are methods to engage with the public
to create a structured dialogue between citizens, experts and politi-
cians in order to help politicians understand public views on different
policy approaches, creating more informed political decision-making
and thereby increasing the democratic legitimacy of policies (Howarth
et al., 2020; Willis, 2020). National governments usually make top-down
climate policy decisions with little input from the public and lack a clear
sense of the wider public’s mandate for climate action. Yet, few attempts
have been made to engage the public in the need for, and benefits of, tran-
sitioning to a net-zero carbon society (Willis, 2019). Broader and more
direct public participation in climate policymaking has been widely advo-
cated as a way to increase the legitimacy and quality of policy decisions,
and a failure to do so risks public backlash, such as the ‘gilets jaunes’
11 CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLIES AND JURIES … 121
protests which emerged in France (Dietz & Stern, 2008; Kythreotis et al.,
2019).
CAJs are deliberative tools to engage with citizens and supplement
representative democracy by bringing informed citizens’ perspectives into
the decision-making process (Smith & Wales, 2000). The processes are
similar but citizen assemblies usually include a representative sample of
50–160 and citizen juries include 12–30 people in the target population,
a group small enough to be genuinely deliberative but large enough to
be representative (Bryant, 2019; Roberts & Escobar, 2015; Goodin &
Dryzek, 2006). An independent oversight panel consisting of key stake-
holders oversees the process (Wakeford et al., 2015). Participants receive
and cross-examine expert information on a particular issue and delib-
erate with each other, discussing different perspectives and trade-offs to
propose a series of informed and considered recommendations to deal
with that issue (Goodin & Dryzek, 2006; Roberts & Escobar, 2015;
Smith & Wales, 2000).
CAJs can potentially provide better insight into public opinions on
climate change that have been reached in a fair and informed way,
allowing citizens to test and discuss a range of approaches to climate
action whilst facilitating public support for tough policy decisions by
including the concerns and ideas of citizens in policymaking (Willis, 2018;
Devaney et al., 2020;Bryant,2019). However, their use in practice
must be analysed to determine the extent to which they achieve and
demonstrate these deliberative benefits.
Impact on Policymaking
CAJs on climate change tend to generate very ambitious recommen-
dations (Willis, 2020). For example, Wilson and Mellier (2020) claim
that both the UK and French Climate Assemblies generated far more
ambitious policies than politicians have ever proposed. Bryant and Stone
(2020) argue that CAJs’ biggest impact is to create a strong political plat-
form for action by providing elected representatives with a public mandate
on climate change. Often CAJs are followed by increased climate action,
such as in Oxford where the council announced over £1 million addi-
tional funding and £18 million of capital investment to address climate
change along with a range of commitments in response to their Citizens
Assembly (Oxford City Council, 2019).
122 R. WELLS
However, the recommendations produced in CAJs often have an advi-
sory role and compete with advice from other groups, making their
impact on policymaking difficult to identify (Bryant & Hall, 2017;
Flinders et al., 2015). In most cases, commissioning bodies respond to
the recommendations in reference to current policies and claim they
will inform an upcoming climate plan. For example, the recommen-
dations produced by the Brent Climate Change Citizens’ Assembly
(November–December 2019) seem to have had a strong influence over
the 2021–2030 Brent Climate Emergency Strategy, which refers to the
recommendations throughout (Brent Council, 2020). However, this
link is not always obvious. As another example, after the UK Climate
Assembly (January–May 2020), the convening parliamentary committees,
the government and the Climate Change Committee committed to take
the recommendations on board, although it is not clear how (Bouyé,
2020). Dicker (2020) considers the limitations of the process and argues
that the UK Climate Assembly could have been improved by having a
direct link to legislative, policy and funding decisions as it had no mandate
from, or direct link, to government.
The French Climate Assembly (October 2019–June 2020) could
have had a large impact as President Macron gave it the power to
generate policies that could be enacted either through a national refer-
endum, parliamentary vote or directly through executive orders (Wilson
& Mellier, 2020;O’Grady,2021). However, almost a year after the
Assembly, its members rated the French government’s proposed climate
and resilience law 3.3 out of 10 for reflecting their recommenda-
tions, which suggest that its impact has been far from that which was
promised (Climate Home News, 2021). However, recommendations
arguably should not be directly implemented, as CAJs are not autho-
rised to govern through democratic processes such as elections. CAJs’
lack of democratic validity suggests that they should act as an advi-
sory body complemented by further expertise and evidence-based input
(Devaney et al., 2020;O’Grady,2021). For example, after the Irish Citi-
zens’ Assembly, an all-party parliamentary committee was established to
respond to the recommendations on climate change. This committee
published a report largely endorsing and further developing the Assem-
bly’s recommendations, which had a significant role in advising and
shaping the development of the Irish government’s 2019 Climate Action
Plan to Tackle the Climate Breakdown (Devaney et al., 2020). Thus,
11 CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLIES AND JURIES … 123
there is a large variation in how CAJs are integrated into policymaking
in practice.
There is a need for agreed follow-up and implementation procedures
for the recommendations produced by CAJs including a guaranteed
response from the commissioning body (Devaney et al., 2020). Ensuring
that recommendations from a CAJ are incorporated into the policymaking
processes in an appropriate and transparent manner is vital to ensure
they are seen as legitimately integrating citizens’ views into policymaking
(Devaney et al., 2020). Nevertheless, CAJs provide a strong mandate and
momentum for climate action which allows policymakers to introduce
more drastic policies, as often seen in practice where stronger climate
policies are announced following them (O’Grady, 2021).
Are These Tokenistic Processes?
There is a risk that CAJs are being used as a tokenistic exercise, enabling
governing bodies to claim that public opinion has been considered, rather
than building a genuine dialogue between them and the public. One key
indication of this is that some processes being labelled CAJs do not meet
the generally accepted standards for them. For example, the Deputy City
Mayor of Leicester (Clarke, 2020) admitted that their Climate Assembly
did not qualify as a citizens’ assembly as its method of recruitment ‘didn’t
match that of a jury or citizens’ assembly’ and the process was only
one day long (Clarke, 2020). Similarly, the Camden Citizens’ Assembly
on the Climate Crisis only totalled 12 hours (Cain & Moore, 2019).
Neither of these cases meet generally accepted standards for CAJs which
should randomly select participants from the population and be at least
20 hours in length to allow proper learning and deliberation to occur
(Cain & Moore, 2019; Mellier-Wilson & Toy, 2020). This suggests that
some engagement processes are wrongly labelled CAJs because they are
currently a trendy engagement method and seen as good politics. For
CAJs to truly realise their potential as deliberative processes and be seen as
legitimate long-term forms of public engagement on climate change, they
must be done rigorously and meet generally accepted standards (Bryant,
2019;O’Grady,2021).
Those processes being run with a more consultative structure where
participants prioritise a pre-prepared list of policy options versus those
which allow participants to come up with their own recommenda-
tions also run the risk of being used as tokenistic exercises (Bryant &
124 R. WELLS
Stone, 2020). For example, the French Climate Assembly was citizen-
led as it was a political chamber where citizens came up with legislative
proposals, which could be directly passed into law (Wilson & Mellier,
2020). In contrast, the recommendations produced by the UK Climate
Assembly were based on predetermined policy options meaning that citi-
zens were not able to shape the agenda, process or come up with their
own measures, instead considering those already drafted by government
(Wilson & Mellier, 2020). A more consultative structure may be little
more than a short-term consultation for interested parties to give the
appearance of public legitimacy to political decisions that have already
been made (Wakeford et al., 2015). Therefore, future processes should
aim to be citizen-led to allow public concerns to be truly considered in
policymaking.
Wider Public Engagement
CAJs have the potential to ignite wider public debates on climate change.
Going back to the example of the French Climate Assembly, it gener-
ated a genuine national debate. 70% of people in France knew of the
Assembly, and of those, 64% considered its work useful to fight against
climate change (Resau Action Climat France, 2020). Thus, the Assembly
generated a powerful mandate for change but also a movement of people
who engaged with the Assembly itself (Wilson & Mellier, 2020). CAJs
run in the UK have largely failed to ignite a wider public debate, often
due to budget limitations and integrated planning but also because CAJs
are rarely seen as tools which can start a wider public dialogue (Bryant
& Stone, 2020). This is a missed opportunity as CAJs should aim to
generate a public debate to increase momentum and hold governing
bodies accountable for the recommendations (Wilson & Mellier, 2020).
However, CAJs are not a panacea for solving issues with public
participation and climate policymaking (Smith & Wales, 2000; Devaney
et al., 2020; Flinders et al., 2015). CAJs only represent one form of
public engagement and deliberation on climate change, and there are a
variety of other communications, education and engagement initiatives
available (Devaney et al., 2020). Additionally, public engagement with
climate change is required beyond the formal process of CAJs so that
people better understand and can help shape low-carbon transformations
(Capstick et al., 2020; Devaney et al., 2020). This is demonstrated by the
fact that the recommendations produced by almost all CAJs request more
11 CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLIES AND JURIES … 125
education and engagement with citizens on climate change. For example,
8 out of the 25 recommendations produced by the Lancaster district
Climate Change People’s Jury revolved around improving communica-
tions, education and council leadership on climate change (Shared Future,
2020). Therefore, whilst CAJs are a positive step towards increasing
public engagement on climate change, much more needs to be done to
engage with citizens on this issue. CAJs should be used alongside other
tools to engage the public and enable them to play a role in climate
change policymaking.
Conclusion
Overall, this chapter highlights how the use of CAJs in practice must be
critically assessed to allow future CAJs to be improved and have maximum
impact on climate action in practice. There is a need for agreed follow-
up and implementation procedures to increase transparency in how CAJs
create more citizen-centred policymaking and prevent their use becoming
tokenistic. The structure of CAJs varies in practice, impacting the extent
to which they truly incorporate citizens’ views into the construction of
climate policies. Thus, CAJs must be designed carefully to enable their
potential benefits to be realised. Furthermore, processes which claim to
be CAJs on climate change should meet generally accepted standards to
ensure that they represent rigorous deliberative processes and are not
tokenistic exercises being used to give the illusion that public opinion
has been taken into account in policymaking.
The limitations of CAJs must also be considered when they are being
designed and used. For example, CAJs only include a small proportion of
the target population, so their representativeness is not a given and their
recruitment processes must be robust if their outcomes are to be truly
representative.
Nevertheless, CAJs provide an opportunity to gather views on climate
change of an informed and representative group of the target popula-
tion. CAJs can also engage the wider public in climate change debates,
an opportunity that future CAJs should seize in order to maximise their
impact. However, CAJs only represent one form of citizen engagement
and are not a panacea to tackling issues around public engagement on
climate change. Thus, whilst their expanding use can increase public
engagement on climate change, they cannot be the only mechanism to
do so.
126 R. WELLS
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