Empowerment and disempowerment in climate assemblies: The French citizens' convention on climate

Abstract

Citizens' assemblies to address climate change have multiplied in recent years. Seen as a useful tool to provide solutions to the climate crisis, they have, however, struggled to impact public policy. Additionally, little is known about how citizens' proposals are diluted or rejected in climate assemblies. We explore this situation through a qualitative case study of the French Citizens' Convention on Climate. The French case is unique in that it involved the incorporation of assembly participants in the process of integrating assembly proposals into a new Law on Climate and Resilience. We use semi-structured interviews and analysis of secondary documentation to understand how citizens' views were finally excluded from draft legislation. Findings show remarkable citizen empowerment taking place during the Citizens' Convention, which nevertheless vanished during the joint elaboration of the law, allowing certain political and economic interests to impose their vision. We suggest that organisers of the process and social movements engaged in climate assemblies should be aware of such risks and try to control how decision-makers adopt citizen proposals for producing legislation in order to avoid exclusions and democracy deficits in democratic climate policy-making. We discuss and reflect on the potential and limits of deliberative and agonistic approaches to democracy and climate action.