Beyond the Green Façade: A Critical Analysis of Digital Participatory Budgeting for Climate Resilience and Governance in Lisbon

This article critically analyses Lisbon's Green Participatory Budget (GPB), launched in 2020 in the symbolic context of the city's designation as European Green Capital. Rather than treating the GPB as a radical democratic innovation, the article situates it as a thematic and digital reconfiguration of Lisbon's long-standing participatory budgeting process, active since 2008 and already incorporating environmental dimensions. Drawing on critical urban studies, political ecology, and literature on participatory governance, the analysis explores the democratic and justice implications of digital participatory climate governance. The article identifies several structural limitations in the design and implementation of GPB, including technocratic control, digital exclusion, restricted deliberation, private sector involvement, and limited attention to issues of distributive and climate justice. Particular attention is given to how participation is framed in procedural rather than political terms, with limited mechanisms to assess inclusion, empower disadvantaged groups, or address the risks associated with green gentrification. Beyond these internal limitations, the article argues that the most significant limitation of Lisbon's GPB lies in its lack of continuity. Despite the mobilisation of financial resources, institutional effort and public expectations, the GPB was not renewed after 2021, nor were its results systematically evaluated or incorporated into long-term governance strategies. This discontinuation compromises the potential of participatory climate governance as a learning process and raises broader questions about symbolic policy-making, institutional memory, and democratic accountability in urban climate action.