The European Society for Ecological Economics held this year's conference in Pisa, Italy, on June 14-17. PARIS REINFORCE was represented by Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) colleagues.

Ester Galende-Sanchez, Alevgul Sorman, and Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino (BC3) presented project work on the deliberative dialogue held with 40 Spanish citizens in May-June 2021 (link), focusing on Spanish citizens’ perceptions and feelings on different behavioural changes regarding mobility, consumption, food and waste, as well as connecting people from different backgrounds and locations to reveal policies, interventions, and possibilities on climate action.

In particular, they presented the results of a deliberation process on the opinions and perspectives of a sample of Spanish citizens for tackling the climate crisis. The main aim of the research was to offer participants a space for reflection on the policies they are willing to support and their willingness to act at the individual and community level, focusing on issues of mobility and consumption. Deliberative surveys differ from opinion polls as they give citizens the time and space to discuss pertinent issues with other citizens with professional facilitation to try to find common ground. Initial results indicate that while individual-level behavioural changes are faced with challenges impacting low and middle-income families, people are more willing to accept public policies targeting all of the population. Overall, deliberative processes are seen as an effective means of achieving more inclusive policymaking processes, involving everyone in the design of the transformations to come.

More about the event can be found here, while the conference agenda is available here. The presentation can be found below the photo.