Frameworks like the ecological footprint or handprint offer simple, quantifiable ways to reflect on individual environmental impact. I am interested in a similar framework focusing on the impact of political participation and collective action instead of individual behavior.
How powerful are actions like voting, protesting, signing petitions, talking to your neighbor about climate change,… in driving climate change mitigation and adaptation? Can we quantify or at least visualize their effects and make them more tangible? In what ways?
Could such framework strengthen (or challenge) our trust in democratic systems to combat climate change?
Indeed, it seems worthwhile to look at political participation. I strongly suggest to focus the work on one specific aspect — for example, it could be worth to conceptually map the landscape such as considering the range from individual to collective, OR to focus on which kind of participation for which a more detailed analysis might be possible. It might be worth consulting the existing literature for deciding which aspect to be taken out to be able to provide a thoughtful answer.
Political participation plays out at the individual level as well as on the community level and the level of the political system, and it is interesting and relevant, to look at how these levels are interlinked, and maybe, as you suggest, refocus on the more macro scale of political participation. Yet, you need to further conceptualise these levels. In how far can “talking to your neighour and signing a petition” be seen as collective behaviour? Conceptually, where does “individual” end, and “collective” begin?