About

“The way our climate is changing will impact us all. How should we respond, to build a thriving and sustainable future for South Yorkshire?” 

– Oliver Coppard, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority Mayor, introducing the South Yorkshire Citizens’ Assembly on Climate (held October to December 2023)

Climate ReAssemblies is rethinking citizen participation in climate policy. As a collective of citizen-climate-researchers, we are exploring the potential for speculative climate storytelling and novel forms of documentation within democratic processes, in order to ask how these might benefit and impact what happens after a climate assembly. 

In response to the recent South Yorkshire Citizens’ Assembly on Climate (2023) and its recommendations, Phase 1: Participatory Climate Futures (2024) gathered citizens from across South Yorkshire communities to co-create scenarios of climate futures for the region. Through participatory workshops and in-depth interviews we considered how climate assemblies and post-climate assembly activity might be re-thought in order to be more inclusive and effective in bringing about the climate actions that citizens need. 

This interactive documentary (i-Doc) tells the story of this process. 

Climate ReAssemblies to-date involves a collective of citizen-climate-researchers from across South Yorkshire communities, South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre, and the Culture and Climate Change initiative, University of Sheffield. 

Climate ReAssemblies has included:

Phase 1: Participatory Climate Futures (2024)

Emre Akbil, School of Architecture and Landscape (SAL) (UoS)

Sara Blackburn, Wonder Made Wild

Pete Bryant, Shared Future 

Jayne Carrick, DPIR and SYSC (UoS)

Catherine Cotterill, Upper Don Valley Energy Group 

Ci Davis, Jubilee Movement Sheffield 

Lena Dobrowolska, SAL (UoS)

Daniel Douglas, SADACCA

David Garlovsky, Schools and Homes Energy Education Project 

Sylvia Katua, DPIR (UoS)

Francesca Lloyd, SAL (UoS)

Ashley Mason, SAL (UoS)

Andrew Ockerby, Upper Don Valley Energy Group

Jenny Patient, South Yorkshire Climate Alliance

Adam Preston, Independent

Pete Riley, Upper Don Valley Energy Group 

Nicky Rivers, Ecology Manager at Sheffield Council

Gareth Roberts, ReGather 

Lungani Sibanda, 2051Media

Richard Souter, Schools’ Climate Education South Yorkshire 

Richard Sulley, SYSC

Rachael Treharne, ShefFood 

Olivier Tsemo, SADACCA 

Renata Tyszczuk, SAL (UoS) 

Sam Wakeling, Living Streets 

Matthew Wood, DPIR and SYSC (UoS)

Charles Young, SAL (UoS)

Production Credits: 

Concept Development, Participants of Phase 1: Participatory Climate Futures 

Concept, Drawings, Storyboards, Animations, Interface Design,  Ugnė Petreikytė

Concept, Audio, Video, Photography, Video Editing, Interactive Development, Interface Design, Lena Dobrowolska

Additional Video Editing, Jayne Carrick, Ashley Mason, Renata Tyszczuk, Stephanie Thomas

Research  assistants, workshop documentation, Francesca Lloyd, Charles Young

Captions, Francesca Lloyd, Ashley Mason

The Climate ReAssemblies project has been made possible by Research England – Participatory Research funding, QR-PSF funding, and the support of Live Works.