Climate Citizens Assemblies

Description

Skepticism towards climate assemblies can stem from several sources. One clear source is climate change denial, but distrust of institutions, participatory democracies and people’s ability to influence decision-making can also contribute to skepticism. On a personal level, a perceived lack of competence, negative experiences with participation, and a preference for avoiding group situations can also be discouraging. Such scepticism and fear of participation can result in people declining invitations or dropping out, which can undermine the core ambition of CCAs to ensure diversity and representativeness in policy- and future-making through sortition.

During the assembly, skeptical reactions can include disengagement, active questioning, or even trying to hijack the deliberation and decision-making process. Skeptical and hostile positions often occur in smaller groups, where facilitators play a key role in addressing the situation. One strategy for dealing with this is to embrace climate emotions and acknowledge the legitimacy of skepticism and dissent, rather than forcing consensus. Design choices such as diverse dialogue formats, combining remote/in-person meetings, and small/large group discussions, help prevent drop-out.

How-To & Examples

Early linkage to decision-makers to motivate participants and strengthen legitimacy by outlining how deliberations connect to political decision-making and commitments though clear implementation pathways Reaching Out to Overcome Political Apathy

Addressing climate emotions collectively to counter skepticism and fear by creating facilitated spaces for reflection. The Global Assembly on Climate Emergency, used exercises like “Expressing hopes and fears”, to encourage participants in sharing feelings and experiences related to climate change and reflections on their own life Global Assembly. Community Assembly Toolkit (p. 14)

Minority reports or recorded documentation of disagreements alongside recommendations ensure pluralism and legitimacy.Seeing like a citizen (p.7) The CCA and Stakeholder Forum South Tyrol documented non-consented proposals in its Final Report (p.116 ff.)

Introduce Devil’s advocate roles to challenge emerging consensus and engage skeptics.

Clear communication of expectations, procedures, and how moderation ensures that all voices are heard to build trustCommunicating Citizens’ Assemblies OECD: Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes, CLIMAS Manual (7.4.2)

Preselected substitute participants to maintain representative composition through selecting selected alternatesAlternates, Assemble!

Literature & Sources

Assos, Angelos, Carmel Baharav, Bailey Flanigan, and Ariel Procaccia (2025). Alternates, Assemble! Selecting Optimal Alternates for Citizens’ Assemblies. Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 719–738. https://doi.org/10.1145/3736252.3742614

Boswell, J., (2021) “Seeing Like a Citizen: How Being a Participant in a Citizens’ Assembly Changed Everything I Thought I Knew about Deliberative Minipublics”, Journal of Deliberative Democracy 17(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.975

Curato, N. and Niemeyer, S. (2013), Participatory Capacity and Deliberative Engagement. Politics & Policy, 41: 355-383. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12015

Jacobs, K. (2024). Have a little faith in deliberation? Examining the effect of participation in a citizens’ assembly on populist attitudes. Contemporary Politics, 30(4), 512-533.

Machin, A. (2023). Democracy, agony, and rupture: A critique of climate citizens’ assemblies. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 64(4), 845-864.

Mendy, Laila, Tatiana Sokolova, Fanny Möckel (2025). Being everything for everybody all at once: Facework for trustworthiness of a citizens’ assembly for the climate, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 170, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104104.