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The public consultation to the UK Climate Change Act 2008: a critical analysis

Despite their increasing use in the creation of environmental policy, the routine public consultations in the UK are little studied. The public consultation to the Climate Change Act 2008 was examined in order to identify the rationales which key actors such as government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individual citizens use to justify citizen participation in climate policy. The interactions between these rationales and the consultation design were also considered. Rationales for participation were based on Stirling's (2005) distinction between normative, instrumental and substantive rationales. It was found that the government's rationale for citizen participation was both normative and instrumental. Different NGOs justified it, to varying degrees, primarily in instrumental and normative terms, although there was also evidence for a substantive rationale. Most individual interviewees thought of their participation in normative terms, while also striving to make substantial contributions. However, many were also sceptical as to their potential influence and thus justified their engagement in instrumental terms. Consultation design mainly engaged those stakeholders already involved in the policy process, and substantive citizen participation largely required the help of NGOs. A closer match is needed between the government's normative rationale, citizen's substantive intent and the consultation design.