The 21st century is marked by two intertwined crises: the erosion of democracy and the escalating impacts of climate change. In this context, citizens’ assemblies on climate have been proposed as one way to increase public policies’ legitimacy and raise climate ambitions by involving citizens directly. Citizens’ assemblies use random selection to bring together diverse and representative groups of citizens to discuss specific questions or topics. Through a facilitated process, participants learn from experts and one another, engage in deliberation, and develop recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders.
International IDEA’s publication Deliberative Democracy and Climate Change: Exploring the Potential of Climate Assemblies in the Global South examines the lessons learned from the 'first wave' of climate assemblies and discusses how deliberative practices may help build more ambitious and citizen-owned climate agendas. While climate assemblies have gained significant traction in Europe, they are also emerging in the Global South, where climate change poses an even more immediate and existential threat. The report emphasizes that citizens’ assemblies are a craft and need to be embedded in the socio-political system and linked to existing deliberative and participatory practices. The Global South has long-standing traditions of deliberative consultation and decision-making, from which the Global North can draw inspiration.
In a series of blogposts, Agnes Rocksén and Pauline Uhrmeister interview practitioners in the field of climate deliberation, highlighting insights from local contexts, as well as challenges, opportunities, and potential impact of deliberative processes in addressing climate change.
Existing toolkits and templates are largely based on experiences from Europe and North America, which makes them limited in particular as they apply to more diverse democratic and political contexts. Creating spaces for voices from the Global South is crucial, as lessons learned from diverse experiences of climate deliberation around the world can inform and enrich existing practices and future possibilities for citizen-led climate action.
The conversations include:
- Climate assemblies in the MENA region: Mariam Daher & Muzna Al-Masri, on their learnings from a pilot climate assembly in Hamra, Lebanon in 2020.
- The first climate assembly in South Africa: Kira Alberts, on the planning of a climate assembly in Cape Town, South Africa, set for 2026.
- Deliberative practices in Colombia: Aluna Serrano, on testing the legislative theatre methodology in Buenaventura, Colombia in 2023.
- Institutionalizing global deliberation: Claire Mellier, on the Global Citizens' Assemblies in 2021 and 2025.
The series will continue to be updated with new insights.
About the authors
