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Public engagement and participation are best understood as fluid and evolving categories that embrace the many ways in which citizens collaborate on, intervene in, oppose or deliberate over matters that concern them. In recent years the role that the public occupies in climate action debates has expanded and has given rise to new knowledge co-creation practices and deliberative decision-making processes. It is increasingly acknowledged that meaningful public engagement in climate action requires well-informed, equal and inclusive processes. There is a compelling body of work internationally in support of embedding deliberative democratic practices more deeply to strengthen public engagement. In this report we explore some of these innovative practices and processes, and present the main findings from the project 'Engaging, Envisioning, and Co-Producing Pathways for a Low Carbon, Climate Resilient Ireland (Imagining2050)', which was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and co-funded by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). The aim of the project was to engage with civil society using innovative co-creation and deliberative approaches, and test these approaches, to explore and consolidate future visions of and pathways to a low-carbon and climate-resilient future in Ireland.

As part of an introductory energy engineering undergraduate module at University College Cork, student presentations on a zero-carbon energy plan for Ireland have shown a high preference for nuclear energy, despite a complete absence of nuclear energy from the same module curriculum. Nuclear power has never been built or generated in Ireland, is currently illegal, and faces high levels of public opposition. The origins of a high preference for nuclear energy among undergraduate student engineers is therefore unclear. In response to this high preference for, but critically unengaged view of nuclear power, the authors developed a participatory learning activity for first year undergraduate engineering students to engage with a range of maximally different perspectives on nuclear power. Four different perspectives on whether Ireland needs nuclear power were presented to this year’s class: definitely yes; definitely no; maybe yes; maybe no. These perspectives involved a number of different framings of nuclear power and ranged across a spectrum from techno-economic to socio-technical. They emphasised to a greater or lesser degree issues around risk, cost, system impacts, timing, social acceptability, and sustainability. The activity took place in a room divided into four quadrants with each quadrant representing one of the four different perspectives on nuclear power. At the start of activity, students were invited to go to the quadrant that best represented their initial views. Each perspective on nuclear power was then delivered in a short expert presentation by one of the co- authors. Throughout these presentations, students were invited to remain in or move from their quadrant as they were persuaded or not by the arguments advanced. At the start of the activity, an overwhelming majority (96%) of the students indicated a yes preference with the majority of these being maybe yes (79%); at the end of the debate the total yes share had significantly decreased (to 54%), with the largest share of the lost vote moving to the maybe no category which finished at 36% (having started at 0%). Overall, there was a greater distribution of students across all four categories than at the start. Evaluations on the activity format were largely positive. Student reasons for changing their views were mostly socio-technical points specific to Ireland that included the electricity system, overall energy needs, costs and expert availability. Closing reflections introduced the idea of a wicked problem and highlighted the importance of values to questions such as “Should Ireland Go Nuclear”, i.e. avoiding an exclusively narrow scientific framing.

An integral part of the model quality control and quality assurance at the European Commission is a scientific peer-review of models, including those developed by external contractors. The present reports details the outcome of the review of the METIS, which was carried out by an external scientific Review Panel closely following ‘Guidelines for the review of models used in support of EU policies’. The review aimed at verifying and consolidating the scientific credibility of METIS and identifying most promising/relevant areas for a future model development. The report includes also a first reaction from the METIS team, detailing among others how Review Panel’s suggestions will be addressed., JRC.I.2-Foresight, Modelling, Behavioural Insights & Design for Policy

The proceedings of the Innovative Methods of Community Engagement: Toward a Low Carbon, Climate Resilient Future workshop have been developed by the Imagining2050 team in UCC and the Secretariat to the National Dialogue on Climate Action (NDCA). The NDCA also funded the workshop running costs. The proceedings offer a set of recommendations and insights into leveraging different community engagement approaches and methodologies in the area of climate action. They draw from interdisciplinary knowledge and experiences of researchers for identifying, mobilizing and mediating communities. The work presented below derives from a workshop held in the Environmental Research Institute in UCC on the 17th January 2019. These proceedings are complementary to an earlier workshop also funded by the NDCA and run by MaREI in UCC, titled ‘How do we Engage Communities in Climate Action? – Practical Learnings from the Coal Face’. The earlier workshop looked more closely at community development groups and other non-statutory organizations doing work in the area of climate change.