Effort to engage Canadians on climate change receives more than $4 million in grants

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February 2, 2010 | Deliberative Democracy Consortium |

Over the next five years, the Alberta Climate Dialogue in Canada will tackle climate change by engaging citizens and showing how political leaders and institutions can collaborate with them to develop policy.

How can collective deliberation by citizens lead to wise and timely action on climate change? Alberta will be a testing ground for this question over the next five years: an international team of scholars, NGOs, businesses, and governments will be addressing it, supported by $1 million in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and over $3 million in contributions from other sources. The research team includes leading researchers and practitioners of deliberative democracy, environmental organizations, energy companies, municipal governments, and provincial ministries. The Alberta Climate Dialogue (ABCD) will help to convene groups of citizens within Albertan municipalities to shape policies on greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to climate change, and also build province-wide deliberation and dialogue on climate issues. Learning alongside citizens, the team will investigate how the design of citizen deliberations shapes their social and political influence. Through this work, the project will seek to show how citizens can lead effective responses to climate change, and how political leaders and institutions can skillfully engage with citizens to develop policy. The project website is www.albertaclimatedialogue.ca.