Citizens’ assemblies propose ambitious climate policy but impacts remain limited

Abstract

Abstract Climate citizens’ assemblies convene randomly selected citizens who, after structured learning and deliberation, develop policy recommendations. Yet, whether they produce more ambitious recommendations and influence political decisions remains contested. Here we conduct a comparative, counterfactual assessment of 488 recommendations from five national and one state-level assembly in Western Europe, drawing on document analysis and expert interviews. The results show that citizens consistently proposed more ambitious climate measures than existing government policy. Recommendations sometimes influenced policy by adding momentum, enriching plans, breaking deadlocks or introducing novel ideas, but such influence was rare. Only the French assembly shows substantial policy impact, with one-third of its recommendations having influenced policy, due to strong power delegation, political leadership and resulting public pressure. In the other cases, policy impact was minimal or absent. These findings show that citizens’ assemblies can raise policy ambition, but translating recommendations into political decisions depends strongly on political conditions.