The influence of climate change advisory bodies on political debates: evidence from the UK Committee on Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change advisory bodies are rapidly proliferating around the world, often with statutory underpinning. While they are argued to be an important component of effective climate governance, few studies have systematically assessed their political influence. Using the UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC) as a case, this paper investigates how such bodies influence political debates on climate change. To do so, we build an original dataset of all CCC mentions in UK Parliamentary proceedings from 2008-2018. We find that CCC analysis is used by all major political parties, that its influence has grown over time and that it has influenced policy debates both within its statutory remit (carbon budgets) and more broadly (energy policy and flood defence spending). Furthermore, most politicians have been supportive of the CCC. They have utilised the information it produces to hold government accountable and to argue for more ambitious policy. We find little evidence that CCC analysis is politicised or that it merely functions as a 'legitimiser', providing justification for the government's pre-decided policy choices. Instead, we find that the CCC functions primarily as a knowledge broker, offering trusted information to policymakers, and at times as a policy entrepreneur. Overall, the CCC experience demonstrates that climate change advisory bodies can play a key role in climate governance. Key policy insights• The information and analysis produced by the CCC is widely cited by Parliamentarians across the political spectrum and is often used as the technical basis for political arguments calling for greater ambition.• CCC evidence has substantial influence in areas that are directly covered by its core statutory mandate, but also wider climate change-related Parliamentary debates, indicating knowledge spillovers.• The UK experience shows that an expert advisory body can strengthen climate governance by serving as an impartial knowledge broker, contributing to more evidencebased and ambitious policymaking.

The Implications of Climate Change on Health among Vulnerable Populations in South Africa: A Systematic Review

“…The South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) serves as a coordination body in the development of objectives, frameworks, and implementation of the national climate change policy [ 32 ]. Although the DEA oversees the development of national climate change policy, the goals of the National Climate Change Response Policy were guided by other national and international commitments, such as “the South African Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the National Environmental Management Act, the Millennium Declaration and commitments made under UNFCCC” [ 32 ]. Multisectoral collaboration of the climate policy is designed, to ensure that all sectors and levels of government are involved in policy development.…”

“…NCCRWP recognizes the importance of policy alignment from national to local and across national departments in promoting a low-carbon society that is sustainable, just, and adaptable. The South African government established the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) to support cooperative governance at the national and sub-national levels, it also monitors municipal integration and cooperation, although municipalities are responsible for addressing certain adaptation challenges [ 32 ]. South African governance appears to practice a bottom-up approach, with the three levels of government (national, provincial and local) having the authority to impose their own rules and regulations for climate change adaptation while cooperating and collaborating to work together.…”

Assessing South Africa's institutional adaptive capacity to maize production in the context of climate change: Integration of a socioeconomic development dimension

“…South Africa's strength in providing diverse proactive strategies and policies to address current and future climate change challenges; NCCRWP, NCCAS, Climate Change Bill, and other pieces of legislation (although some of them are yet to be finalized and promulgated) contributed to this score. Other areas of strength that informed the score for this dimension relate to the ability of management institutions to foster diversity of opinions and frames of reference and the presence of overlapping or coherent policy provisions (Averchenkova et al, 2019; Cammarano et al, 2020). The lowest score in this dimension relates to the involvement of multiple actors (slightly positive).…”

“…Therefore, this criterion was scored slightly high. The legislative mandate to effectively set in motion adaptive planning is, however, in the pipeline (Averchenkova et al, 2019; Montmasson‐Clair & Zwane, 2016). Due to competing needs for development and concurrent economic challenges in South Africa, dedicated financial resources to support climate change response for maize farmers are very limited, and for this reason, this criterion is scored very low (Kephe et al, 2020; Pasquini & Shearing, 2014; Ziervogel et al, 2014).…”

“…This dimension was also scored high. South Africa has displayed visionary leadership at the national level by establishing one of the most intricate and all‐inclusive climate governance structures observable among developing and emerging economies (Averchenkova et al, 2019; Kephe et al, 2020). This is slowly filtering to the local governmental institutions, with an increasing number of them initiating efforts toward aligning their climate change response policies with national directives.…”