Public Participation and Climate Governance: An Introduction

Abstract

This introduction situates the contributions to this special issue within the broader legal and scholarly developments that concern the relationship between public participation and climate governance. It begins by discussing the origins and scope of the principle of public participation in international environmental and climate law. It then provides an overview of three broad strands of research that have examined the role and prospects of public participation, collaboration and deliberation in the governance of complex environmental issues such as climate change. It concludes by identifying a number of lines of inquiry that could inform future research on the relationship between public participation and climate governance.

Demand, Services and Social Aspects of Mitigation

“…Participatory governance involves understanding and engagement with policies, including climate policies. Greater public participation in climate policy processes and governance, by increasing the diversity of ideas and stakeholders, builds resilience and allows broader societal transformation towards systemic change, even in complex, dynamic and contested contexts (Dombrowski 2010;Wise et al 2014;Haque et al 2015;Jodoin et al 2015;Mitchell 2015;Kaiser 2020;Alegria 2021). This sometimes involves complex policy discussions that can lead to governance innovations, also influencing social norms (Martinez 2020).…”

Rights-based approaches to climate decision-making

“…In doing so, a rights-based approach emphasizes the importance of public participation, access to information, and access to justice to ensure that climate governance processes are fair, transparent, and inclusive [89,90]. This requires measures that strengthen the capacity of citizens and communities to participate in climate decision-making that concerns them [73,86,[83][84][85] and provide them with access to judicial or administrative proceedings and effective remedies when they suffer harm from climate action and inaction [89,90]. Moreover, different human rights instruments require that States fully and effectively ensure the meaningful participation of certain groups that have been historically disenfranchised in decisionmaking processes, including Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, minorities, women, and children [36,62,64,67,69].…”

Accountability in the Governance of Global Change

“…Given these challenges, a substantial focus of recent research has been specific tools that can increase accountability and allow some actors to hold others responsible for their actions (Gordon 2016, Kramarz andPark 2016). These tools include certification, public participation (Jodoin, Duyck, and Lofts 2015), performance monitoring and self-reporting, stakeholder partnerships (Scobie 2017), cooperative initiatives between state and non-state actors (Widerberg and Stripple 2016), or future scenario planning and foresight practices with social actors (Kunseler et al 2015). The spread of such practices represents a success in itself, and they have been found to result in meaningful improvement in the reach of both agency and accountability.…”