One year on: The French Climate Assembly (CCC) learnings for COP26

One year after the end of the French Citizens’ Convention for the Climate (CCC), at a time when the COP 26 meets in Glasgow, what analysis can be made of this event? Are citizens’ assemblies a legitimate and efficient way of facing the climate crises? What was and what could be the role of randomly selected bodies in politics? What was the specificity of the French CCC compared with the English or the Scottish Citizens’ assemblies for the climate, or with the Irish citizens’ assemblies?

These questions were discussed by one of the leading initiators of the CCC, Mathilde Imer, by Erica Hope, Director of the European Climate Foundation, and by Graham Smith (University of Westminster), a leading scholar on randomly selected mini-publics and the chair of KNOCA.