ABSTRACT
Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly 2016–18 was an exceptional experiment in democratic governance. It comprised of ninety-nine citizens drawn from all walks of life and afforded them the time, space, and structure to consider complex questions of public policy in a deliberative way. Climate change was one of five topics considered by the Assembly. The 13 recommendations they agreed on the climate change topic were significantly more radical than many observers expected, and have served to catalyse Irish climate policymaking. The recommendations were considered and broadly endorsed by an all-party parliamentary committee that, in turn, helped to shape an all-of-government Climate Action Plan published in June 2019. A new programme for government, agreed in June 2020, in turn went beyond the Climate Action Plan, promising even stronger national climate action. In this chapter we set out the institutional innovations encapsulated in Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly and follow-on processes. We find only limited and sporadic evidence that the process was aimed explicitly at providing a model of climate governance for others to follow. However, since its conclusion this Irish experiment in deliberative democracy has gained attention in other jurisdictions and across other policy areas that are considering emulating the Citizens’ Assembly model. For these reasons, we suggest that the use of a Citizens’ Assembly to deliberate on climate change policy in Ireland is best conceptualised as pioneership rather than leadership.
