New Publication: The policy impact of climate change advisory bodies

​Climate advisory bodies have been established in over 40 countries. However, the existing literature focuses on their formation and remits, not their unfolding policy impact. A new article in Climate Policy - 'The policy impact of climate change advisory bodies: government responses to the UK Climate Change Committee’s recommendations, 2009–2020' - addresses this important gap by reporting the findings of a novel analysis of the UK Government’s responses to the UK Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) mitigation and adaptation recommendations published in its annual progress reports, taking written acceptance as a proxy for policy impact. 

It finds that 23% of the mitigation and adaptation recommendations published by the CCC in progress reports were accepted by the government, and only 2% in full. Nevertheless, the characteristics of recommendations, including to whom they are addressed, their sectoral focus, and whether they contain delivery targets, have a statistically significant relationship with how the government responds. Advisory bodies in other countries can learn from the UK’s experience by providing short, clear and direct recommendations. This would enable them to hold governments to account for their response to, and (non-)implementation of, recommendations.