This course introduces SciencesPo students to the emerging practice of climate assemblies through a critical engagement with key debates in climate and environmental politics. Climate assemblies are a relatively new form of participatory climate governance. A climate assembly brings together everyday people selected by democratic lottery to learn, deliberate and make recommendations on aspects of the climate crisis. Around 100 climate assemblies have been run across Europe at different levels of governance in the last five years. Arguably the most-high profile and politically contentious assembly is the French Citizens' Convention for the Climate (CCC) that met over 7 weekends in 2019-2020. The course places the Convention in the context of the wider politics and practice of climate assemblies, asking whether such bodies are or can be a significant element of climate governance and democratic renewal. Through the analysis of climate assemblies, the course engages with questions of the representation of future generations and nonhuman nature; the status of different forms of knowledge; systems thinking and climate justice; and the capacity of
democracies to respond to the climate crisis. The course will combine conceptual and theoretical literature on climate politics and governance with Briefings and Guidance developed by the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies (KNOCA). This will be a rare opportunity for students to engage productively with both academic and practitioner debates on an emerging political phenomenon.