Climate assemblies and juries look set to remain a growing trend in European countries, at least for now. Despite this fact, there is still relatively little research available about how these mini publics are run and the impact they have. This commission from the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA) to Involve starts to address that gap.
More climate assemblies and juries have taken place in the UK than in any other country. Our report explores developments in how these local climate assemblies and juries have been designed, delivered and commissioned. It serves as a handbook of the latest practice, covering eighteen areas including:
- Participant recruitment, onboarding and renumeration
- Evidence selection and presentation
- Facilitation techniques and agreeing recommendations
- Achieving impact beyond the end of the assembly or jury
- Working to a budget
It also contains twenty-two brief case studies of local climate assemblies and juries in the UK.
For KNOCA this commission is a first step in testing how to collect and collate information on subnational climate mini public practice across Europe.
Acknowledgements
This report would not have been possible without the willingness of representatives from the following organisations to be interviewed and to support the creation of the mini public case studies.
In alphabetical order, these organisations are:
- The Democratic Society (Demsoc)
- Electoral Reform Society (ERS) Cymru
- Datblygiadau Egni Gwledig (DEG)
- Involve (colleagues and associates)
- Ipsos UK
- Mutual Gain
- NatCen
- Shared Future
- TPXimpact
We would like to thank them for their generosity in giving up their time and, most importantly, in sharing their knowledge and practice with us. We would also like to thank Sortition Foundation who contributed additional information to this report.
This project was kindly supported by the European Climate Foundation.