How to include radical perspectives? How to make fundamental critic and alternatives accessible? How to allow radical thinking without shying away people with less radical thinking?
RelatedFuture VisioningEncourage Self-OrganisationCollectively LearningEnabling Spaces & ToolsSustaining Empowerment
Angela Davis, a leading figure in the American civil rights movement, said: “Radical simply means grasping things at the root.” However, radical alternatives to the status quo that allow for a good life for all without destroying the living world seem more difficult to imagine than their dystopian counterparts. When utopian imaginaries emerge, they are often dismissed as naive. Barriers to thinking radical alternatives hinder fruitful discussions of alternative approaches, solutions, and pathways. → Future Visioning
In South Tyrol, a CCA participant claimed, “We don’t just criticise the climate plan; we criticise everything”, expressing a desire for profound structural changes. The roots of the climate crisis are ingrained in the dominant socio-economic systems and cultures. Moving beyond business as usual can contribute to more just modes of production and living. Limited perspectives contrapose individual vs. structural solutions, resulting in a zero-sum choice between two opposing ways of making change. A way forward could be participatorily deciding what and how to produce based on people’s needs. Similarly, state and transnational socio-economic choices reflect positions on climate and lead action. For example, democracies that increasingly disconnect from fossil fuel dependency and the related political influence of the industry can enhance their capacity to reduce polluting emissions.
Inviting radical thinkers and doers happens rarely, especially when assemblies are commissioned by state institutions. The independent CCA in Germany, invited the social psychologist Harald Welzer with an input on societal transformation. youtube channel of the Bürgerat Klima. This assembly also used the ‘Parliament of Things’ by the social scientist Bruno Latour for → Inviting the More Than Human.
In Lebanon and Tunisia radical thinking emerged through the design of the CAs as “claimed spaces”, within limited institutionalisation and beyond formal state structures. In Lebanon this enabled critique of clientelism, geopolitical dependency, and structural inequality in the energy system, with lived experiences grounding alternative imaginaries.
Climate Camps are not CCAs, but incorporate assemblies where activists invite critical intellectuals and collaborate on radical democratic strategies. Organisers, facilitators, advisers and participants of CCA could join Climate Camps to learn, contribute, and connect. Vision of Klimacamp.at
Organisation like Ulex and radius train and consult social movements. Their approaches to social-ecological transformations and teaching can be instructive for CCAs.
The KAUZ project aimed to bring concepts and practices such as climate justice, degrowth, ecofeminism and the commons into adult education. The materials, short videos and workshop formats can be adapted for CCAs.
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Brownstein, M., Kelly, D., & Madva, A. (2022). Individualism, structuralism, and climate change. Environmental Communication, 16(2), 269-288.
Daher, M., Chabane, S., Al-Masri, M., & Shehabi, A. (2026). Decolonising deliberation: Citizens’ assemblies as a claimed space for forging bottom-up democracy in Lebanon and Tunisia. Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 14. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.10672
Davis, A. Y. (1990). Women, culture & politics. Vintage.
Ejsing, M., Veng, A. & Papazu, I. Green politics beyond the state: radicalizing the democratic potentials of climate citizens’ assemblies. Climatic Change 176, 73 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03550-z
Lindvall, D., & Karlsson, M. (2024). Exploring the democracy-climate nexus: a review of correlations between democracy and climate policy performance. Climate Policy, 24(1), 87-103.
Tønder, L. (2024). Citizens’ climate assembly, sustainability, and democratic innovation in an Anthropocene world. Politica, 56(2), 187–188. https://doi.org/10.7146/politica.v56i2.147338