RETOOL workshop on Climate Change and Parliaments, Vienna 2026

This week our project organized a workshop on Climate Change and Parliaments, held on 14–15 September 2026 at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna.

The workshop coincided with International Democracy Day 2026, a timely backdrop for two days spent examining the evolving role of parliaments in tackling the climate crisis. The workshop had four panels, researchers from across Europe and beyond shared work on parliamentary oversight and accountability, including case studies from Ireland, the EU's use of delegated and implementing acts and public participation in national energy and climate plans. Discussion then turned to parties, parliaments and climate-policy conflict, looking at whether party politics really shapes climate mitigation outcomes, shifting climate politics in the US House of Representatives, and the European Parliament's changing role as an environmental actor. 

The second day opened with a panel on framing, the politics of responsibility, covering legislative oversight in the anthropocene, how disasters shape climate framing and new approaches to classifying blame attribution in parliamentary debates. This was followed by a session on protest, backlash and parliamentary contestation, exploring how parties respond to climate mobilization and the discursive legacy of Fridays for Future in Austrian politics. 

The workshop closed with a roundtable of comparative reflections and a discussion of next steps for the project.