Climate Democracy learnings: webinar highlights

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As the climate crisis continues to unfold,  participatory and deliberative democracy has become a powerful framework for involving communities directly in climate-related decisions. Despite this, several complex challenges stand in our way.  

Our third learning webinar with Open Government Partnership, and Trust, Accountability, and Inclusion Collaborative (TAI) brought experts together to discuss: How can we ensure inclusive approaches that respect local knowledge and expertise? How do we navigate the complexities of local and global climate policies? What innovations are making a real impact on the ground?

Here are lessons on climate from the webinar:

1. Connecting across sectors and stakeholders is key for building capacity for stronger democratic innovations on climate.

Aly Rahim, from the Global Partnership for Social Accountability, discussed what’s possible when we link up climate finance and climate democracy, and shared a vision for robust infrastructure connecting the two to create more impactful and sustainable climate action.

2. Creating space for learning and exploration on highly technical and complex climate challenges as the ‘right to understand’ builds more robust participatory processes.

In Quintana Roo, María José Tejero from Ciudadan@s por la Transparencia has been working alongside the Quintana Roo government to lead a participatory policymaking process to design an environmental governance plan for the region, and identified this learning stage as fundamental to their success so far.

3. Embedding transparency and accountability, alongside participation, is essential for tackling the climate crisis.

OGP Local shared success stories in opening governments to enable strong participatory decision-making from local level sustainable development led by young people in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas in Ecuador, to national-level policymaking in Chile to incorporate the Escazú Agreement.

4. Sustaining local action through embedding socio-economic benefits is a key tool for capacity-building and increased engagement.

This ranges from sharing strong evidence on what is possible through climate adaptation programs, to making more funding available for local government, as Rizqa from Kota Kita shared in her experience on the ground delivering participatory programs on climate.

Next steps:

💻 Catch up on the event

  1. Watch the webinar recording (and interpretations in Spanish, Portuguese, and French)

  2. Read the slide deck

💡 Apply by July 8

  1. Apply for the Climate Democracy Accelerator to receive support and funding up to $30,000

  2. Apply for mentorship to launch or improve your inclusive democracy program (deadline: July 8)

🙋‍♀️ Commit

  1. Take up the Open Gov Challenge on Environment and Climate

️⚡️ Join us again!

Register for the final learning webinar on July 2 on Mainstreaming Participatory and Deliberative Democracy