When democracy starts to overheat

The climate crisis is exposing the limits of our political systems. Citizens’ assemblies could help democracy regain the long-term perspective it has lost.

The heat no longer arrives as a surprise. It comes earlier each year, stays longer and leaves a growing trail of consequences. Cities turn into heat reservoirs, forests lose their resilience and soils dry out. What climate scientists have been warning about for decades has become part of everyday life.

And yet the political response often appears to follow a different sense of time.

Democracies operate in electoral cycles

The atmosphere is warming continuously. Democracies, by contrast, operate in electoral cycles. Governments think in budgets, parties in opinion polls, and politicians in the next election. Between the speed of climate change and the speed of political decision-making, a gap has emerged – a gap in which the crisis continues to deepen.

The question, therefore, is not only why societies have struggled to act quickly enough against global warming. It is also whether our democratic institutions were designed for a challenge whose most important decisions must be taken today, while their consequences will unfold over decades and centuries.

The short time horizon of elections

Elections are among the greatest achievements of modern democracy. They enable peaceful transfers of power, political accountability and public participation. Yet precisely when societies face long-term challenges, they also reveal certain structural weaknesses.

Political systems based on competition for majorities often reward visible achievements in the short term. Measures whose costs are immediate but whose benefits emerge only years later are politically harder to defend.

Democratic systems face a dilemma

Climate policy is a prime example. A new fossil-fuel project may promise jobs and cheap energy today. Investment in climate-friendly infrastructure often delivers its greatest benefits only in the future. Democratic systems therefore face a dilemma: they must make decisions not only for those who vote today, but also for future generations who have no political voice.

There is another challenge. Parliaments are essential institutions of political representation, but they do not fully mirror society. People with higher levels of education, greater financial resources and stronger access to political networks remain disproportionately represented in political institutions. Society as a whole is only partially reflected.

Yet the climate crisis affects everyone. It requires not only political decisions, but also social understanding.

From political conflict to deliberation

This is where citizens’ assemblies enter the debate.

Their principle is simple and, at the same time, unusual: people are not elected but selected by lottery. The composition of the group is designed to reflect the population. Young and old, people with different educational backgrounds, incomes and life experiences come together.

Random selection does not replace democracy. It creates a different form of representation.

While election campaigns often reward confrontation and clear-cut positions, citizens’ assemblies follow a different logic. Participants receive time, expert information and opportunities for discussion. They hear from scientists, affected communities and different interest groups. The recommendations that emerge are often more ambitious than political observers expect.

Reducing the distance between citizens and political decisions

The political scientist Claudia Chwalisz argues that such processes can help reduce the distance between citizens and political decisions. When people do not merely vote on finished proposals but take part in developing solutions, their relationship with politics changes.

One participant in a citizens’ assembly described the experience: “I arrived with many assumptions. In the end, I realised that nobody has the perfect answer. But together you can find better solutions.”

The point is not that citizens’ assemblies eliminate conflict. Societies will continue to disagree. But disagreement is handled differently: less through confrontation, more through careful consideration.

A global movement

Citizens’ assemblies are no longer a democratic experiment at the margins of politics. According to the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA), more than 200 climate citizens’ assemblies and comparable processes addressing the climate and ecological crisis have already taken place worldwide.

France led the way with the first national Citizens’ Climate Assembly. 150 citizens developed 149 proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Not all of them were fully implemented, but the process transformed the political debate: climate policy was no longer negotiated exclusively between political parties and organised interest groups, but also with randomly selected citizens.

A KNOCA analysis published in April 2025 shows that 30 recommendations (20 per cent of all recommendations) were fully implemented, whilst 75 proposals (51 per cent) were implemented in part or through an alternative measure. 33 recommendations (22 per cent) were abandoned, rejected or, at the very least, not implemented. According to the government, three recommendations (or two per cent) had already been implemented through existing measures. The remaining five per cent (seven proposals) require action at European or international level.

Commitments to implementation in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is one of the most recent examples of this trend. The country’s national Citizens’ Climate Assembly brought together randomly selected citizens to discuss how the country could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions whilst maintaining social fairness and public support.

Following a review of scientific evidence and a discussion of different perspectives, the participants developed recommendations designed to combine ambitious climate action with social equity. The government promised to implement at least half of all the citizens’ proposals.

Climate Assembly in Germany

Germany has gained similar experience. The federal Citizens’ Climate Assembly demonstrated that citizens, after receiving expert information and engaging in structured deliberation, are capable of addressing complex policy questions and developing broadly supported recommendations.

The municipal level is particularly significant. Cities such as Bonn and Erlangen have used participatory processes to discuss climate protection, mobility and adaptation to rising temperatures together with residents.

Because the climate crisis is experienced locally: on overheated streets, in the lack of green spaces and shade, and in decisions about transport and energy systems.

From participation to institution

The crucial question, however, is what happens after a Citizens’ Assembly has finished its work.

Many participation processes fail not because they lack ideas, but because they lack a connection to political decision-making. Recommendations can disappear into reports if no institutions exist to carry them forward.

That is why the permanent institutionalisation of citizens’ assemblies is increasingly being discussed.

A key example is Ostbelgien. The German-speaking Community of Belgium has created a permanent citizens’ dialogue structure: a citizens’ council regularly convenes randomly selected citizens’ assemblies. Public participation is therefore no longer a one-off project but a permanent element of political decision-making.

Initiatives in many places

The experience of Ostbelgien has become an important international reference point for those arguing that citizens’ assemblies should become a lasting democratic institution. Similar efforts to create permanent deliberative structures can be found in different European cities and regions. While not all of these bodies focus specifically on climate policy, they demonstrate how randomly selected citizens can be integrated into ongoing political decision-making.

The permanent Climate Citizens’ Assembly in Brussels demonstrates how such institutionalisation can work specifically in climate policy. Randomly selected residents regularly deliberate on climate issues and provide recommendations to policymakers. They do not replace elected parliaments; they complement them.

These examples point towards a possible future for democratic systems: citizens’ assemblies could evolve from occasional consultation processes into a permanent democratic infrastructure, particularly for complex long-term challenges such as climate change.

Municipalities as democratic laboratories

Local government plays a particularly important role. This is where political ideas become practical reality.

The project "Klima trifft Kommune" (Climate meets Municipality) operates at precisely this intersection. It connects citizens’ assemblies with municipal referendums. The aim is to ensure that recommendations do not merely remain discussions, but are translated into concrete measures: heat action plans, climate adaptation strategies and sustainable mobility concepts.

The experience of many participants shows that the strength of citizens’ assemblies lies not only in individual decisions. They can transform political culture. People discover that different perspectives do not inevitably lead to deadlock.

A new democratic architecture?

The debate about citizens’ assemblies is therefore about more than a new participation tool.

It touches on a fundamental question: how must democracy evolve when humanity’s greatest challenges require decisions with a long-term horizon?

The democracy researcher Yves Sintomer reminds us that random selection is not a modern invention. In ancient Athens, lotteries were among the central mechanisms of democratic self-government. Modern citizens’ assemblies combine this tradition with scientific expertise, professional facilitation and the demands of complex contemporary societies.

The goal is not to abolish parliaments. Elections remain indispensable. They create accountability and enable political leadership. But they can be complemented by institutions that better reflect social diversity and encourage long-term thinking.

A test of democracy’s ability to adapt

The climate crisis is therefore also a test of democracy’s ability to adapt.

Perhaps the answer is not to choose between representative democracy and citizens’ assemblies. Perhaps it is to combine them.

Because the strength of democracy is not that it never makes mistakes. It is that it can change its institutions when reality demands it.

Note: The text and image in this article were generated using AI