Can a jury of citizens break the climate deadlock?

When 150 people drawn by lot gathered in Paris in October 2019, few expected them to matter. Their task, set by the French government, was to propose measures to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2030, compared with 1990, in a spirit of social justice. They produced 149 proposals. Ireland has gone further: the citizens' assembly (1) it held from 2016 to 2018 examined, among other subjects, the constitutional rules on abortion (the Eighth Amendment), and a referendum followed in May 2018. A later assembly was devoted to biodiversity loss. Democracies are discovering that a group chosen at random can ask questions that elected politicians avoid.

The case for such assemblies starts from a weakness of ordinary politics. Governments plan for four or five years; the climate problem runs over decades. A minister who proposes higher fuel prices or stricter rules on housing is punished at the next election, so the hard choices are put off. Citizens drawn by lot have no election to win. They can take the time to study the evidence, disagree and then vote. The hope is that a decision reached by people like us will be easier for the public to accept.

The French experience shows how fragile that hope is. The assembly had been promised that its proposals would go, unfiltered, to a referendum, to a parliamentary vote or to direct application. Parliament later passed a climate law in 2021 that took up part of the assembly's work, while other measures were handled by other texts, and its members published their own verdict on the government's answers. Whatever the exact balance, the episode shows how a doubtful promise can damage trust. Much now depends on what reaches the statute book (2) and what does not.

Critics raise a second objection, about legitimacy. A hundred and fifty people, however carefully chosen, hold no mandate (3). If the elected parliament rejects their ideas, it can be accused of ignoring the people; if it adopts them wholesale, it can be accused of handing power to a body nobody voted for. Defenders reply that an assembly advises and does not decide. Parliament keeps the last word, but it must explain itself when it says no.

There is a further difficulty: the climate does not respect borders. The most ambitious proposals, from taxes to rules on flying, depend on neighbours, markets and international agreements. A national assembly can say how a country should act, but not how others should. And citizens, however well informed, can be as divided over the cost as everyone else.

The most honest conclusion may be a modest one. Assemblies will not replace politics, and they are no cure for a lack of political will. Used well, with a clear mandate, a promise that is kept and an honest answer when it is not, they can bring fresh voices to hard choices. Used badly, they risk becoming another ceremony in which the people are consulted and then ignored.