Public Participation in Climate Budgeting: Engaging academics, professionals, practitioners, and the public in climate change discussion through a Deliberative Poll

Achieving carbon neutrality has become a shared goal for major cities to mitigate temperature increase within 1.5℃. Committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the Hong Kong Government committed to allocate about $240 billion in the next 15 to 20 years for climate mitigation and adaptation implementation. This study aims to understand Hong Kong climate stakeholders’ (academics, professionals, practitioners, advocacy groups, private sectors, civil society, etc.) preferences and priorities of climate proposal and budgeting, and how their opinions might change under a more thorough informed view enabled by deliberative discussions. Specifically, this study intends to: 1) conduct a deliberative poll with climate stakeholders from academic, professionals, non-academic (NGOs, green industry practitioners, etc.), and civil society (n=150) to discuss on climate budget options; and 2) conduct an opinion survey with Hong Kong citizens (n=1,000).