Shepherd, Alfie and Ainscough, Jacob and Tyfield, David (2024) The people’s climate plan : A review of UK deliberative mini publics and public preferences on climate policy. Masters thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
The UK must reach net zero by 2050, but the path to this target remains unclear and progress to date has been insufficient. There are concerns that our democratic institutions may be unable to develop effective climate policies which work for citizens. This has seen calls for increased public engagement in climate policy, often informed by the ideals of deliberative democracy. Experimentation with deliberative innovations have taken place in various local, national, and international contexts on policy challenges, such as climate change. The deliberative mini public (DMP) has emerged in this space, bringing together a representative sample of a population to hear expert opinion, discuss with peers, and produce recommendations on what they think should happen. Deliberation produces detailed and informed public opinion based on evidence and reason, transforming public preferences and indicating what the wider public might think had they had the time to deliberate on the issue. The use of DMPs has been significant in the UK, both at the local and national level. The systems turn in deliberative democracy has opened debates on DMP’s role in the wider democratic system, and their potential role to ‘signal’ the wider public towards issues which require more attention and debate. This research, therefore, undertakes a review of 30 UK DMPs on climate change from 2019- 2023. Their recommendations are aggregated to establish which climate policies are well-supported. Publicly available polling data from the same period is collected and compared to the findings of the DMP analysis to assess where DMPs and polls diverge and converge on support for climate policies. This reveals the ‘signals’ DMPs may send to the wider public and other political actors on climate. The research explores the role of the climate DMPs in the political system, discussing its strengths and weaknesses as a tool available to institutions.