The Citizens’ Climate Research Project, funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (project 2018-CCRP-DS.18), was undertaken by an inter-disciplinary project team comprising Prof. Pat Brereton (School of Communications), Dr. Diarmuid Torney, Dr. Laura Devaney, and Martha Coleman (School of Law and Government) at Dublin City University.

The Citizens’ Assembly was an exceptional experiment in democratic governance. Comprising ninety-nine citizens drawn from all walks of life, it afforded them the time, space, and structure to consider complex and important questions of public policy in a comprehensive and considered way. The 13 recommendations they agreed on the climate change topic were significantly more radical than many expected.

The Assembly’s deliberations on climate change provide an incredibly rich source of data on environmental literacy in Ireland, as well as lessons for deepening public engagement in this area. This project is focusing on both the substance and process of the Citizens’ Assembly, and undertakes two principal tasks. First, we are comprehensively analysing written submissions, video footage, and papers prepared by experts at the Citizens’ Assembly on climate change. Second, we are using this analysis to develop a toolkit for policymakers to enhance public engagement on climate change. This toolkit will be tested using focus groups and refined on the basis of the diverse audience feedback obtained.

Project outputs

• Final report: Deepening Public Engagement on Climate Change: Lessons from the Citizens’ Assembly
• Resource for policymakers: Enhancing Citizen Engagement on the Climate Crisis: The Role of Deliberation
• Final infographic and initial infographic

Academic papers

• Devaney, Laura, Pat Brereton, Diarmuid Torney, Martha Coleman, Constantine Boussalis, and Travis G. Coan (2020), “Environmental Literacy and Deliberative Democracy: A Content Analysis of Written Submissions to the Irish Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change”, Climatic Change.
• Devaney, Laura, Diarmuid Torney, Pat Brereton and Martha Coleman (2020), “Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change: Lessons for Deliberative Public Engagement and Communication”, Environmental Communication, vol. 14, no. 2, pp.141–146.

This project is funded under the EPA Research Programme 2014-2020. The EPA Research Programme is a Government of Ireland initiative funded by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. It is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has the statutory function of co-ordinating and promoting environmental research.

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