Climate change adaptation and mitigation is one of the most pressing issues living beings currently face. The causes and consequences of climate change cannot only be addressed through individual actions but require systemic changes that produce lasting effects.
Public policies can enable change and shape more resilient, regenerative, and thriving futures beyond extractivist paradigms, focusing on relational approaches that care for our planet’s climate and biodiversity. In this context, Climate Citizen Assemblies (CCAs) have been proposed as instruments to enable climate change adaptation and mitigation through participatory processes. CCAs bring together a diverse group of citizens, randomly selected through a lottery process that considers individual characteristics (e.g., age, gender) to learn and deliberate on climate issues and make recommendations on climate policy challenges.
CCAs appear as a promising instrument to contribute to climate justice, diversity and inclusion, although these promises are yet to be fulfilled. Research on CCA focuses on their design, development, and evaluation from various perspectives, including the social and political sciences. This project takes a novel perspective by looking at CCAs with an eco-social design lens, both analytically and operationally. We want to understand which imaginaries shape future-making processes in CCAs and to what extent the consideration of climate-justice and just transition influence their processes and outcomes.
Through anthropological methods, such as observations and interviews with citizens, stakeholders, and facilitators, we analyse the participatory processes, experiences, and learnings that are produced through a CCA. Grounded on this empirical knowledge, we produce eco-social design tools and data visualisations that can be used in future CCAs. To this end, in this project we compare two CCAs: the Klimabürgerrat, Südtirol / Consiglio dei cittadini per il Clima, Alto Adige and the Assemblea Ciutadana pel Clima, Catalunya.
The CCA in South Tyrol is made up of 50 adult residents of South Tyrol who were drawn by lot by the provincial statistical office ASTAT according to the variables of gender, age, district of residence, educational and professional background and language to represent a cross-section of the South Tyrolean population. To give a voice to those whose future will be particularly affected by climate change, six young people (below 18y.) are also represented in the CCA. A special feature of the South Tyrolean model is the parallel Stakeholder Forum Climate (SHFK), which for the first time brings together delegates from the organized public – trade unions, social, cultural, environmental and economic sectors. In a series of working sessions, the two forums will examine the 2040 Climate Plan 2040 for South Tyrol adopted by the provincial government and jointly discuss its objectives and measures in the areas of food and land use, mobility, housing, energy, consumption and production.
At the Assemblea Ciutadana pel Clima de Catalunya, the Citizens’ Assembly for Climate of Catalonia, commissioned by the Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya, 100 citizens from Catalonia came together from November 2023 to February 2024 to learn together and develop recommendations and solutions for climate policy. In addition to involving a diverse citizenry and promoting awareness to climate change, the objectives of the CCA in Catalonia also include supporting decision-makers and involving people with expertise and interest groups in the design and implementation of the assembly. Similar to the topics negotiated in South Tyrol the Catalan CCA dealt with the use of renewable energies and the food model of the future, which are directly linked to the consequences of climate change.
Team
Associated Partners
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. (IASS)
Eurac Research, Research Area “Climate Change and Transformation“: A consortium of the Institute for Regional Development, Institute for Renewable Energy, Centre for Advanced Studies and the Institute for Earth Observation (EURAC)
Here we go – Democracy Innovation e.V. (EGL)