Lead author: Graham Smith, Chair of KNOCA
The Current Trends Report is a format first published in April 2023 to give a overview over climate assembly practice. This new 2025 edition highlights the latest development and places it within the broader context of public participation. The report from 2024 is available here for reference: Climate assemblies: emerging trends, challenges and opportunities.
The reports explain the valuable contribution assemblies can make to climate policy and governance, along with examples of impacts on policy, institutions, public debate and assembly members.
A striking finding is the way that the impact of stakeholder involvement in climate assemblies varies significantly depending on how clearly their role is defined, how transparently they are selected, and how power imbalances are addressed in the process.
Often public officials who have organised climate assemblies speak about how challenging and difficult a process it can be, but always when asked say that they would happily do it again – learning from their mistakes of course!
The reports focuses on the strength of current practice, but also shows where practice can be improved, not least in relation to definition of an appropriate remit, transparency and communication, scepticism amongst climate governance actors, and integration in the political system.
The report ends with a summary of the work KNOCA will develop over the coming year to ensure that future assemblies are designed with impact.
KNOCA intends to update the report at regular intervals to capture new developments and learnings and would be delighted to receive feedback at info@knoca.eu.
