Building expertise for decarbonization: Mapping the EU policy advisory system for climate change

Expertise and policy advice have long been important in European Union policymaking due to the regulatory nature of much EU law and the generally technocratic approach taken by the European Commission. In this context, there is a growing literature on the institutions and actors that make up the EU system for policy advice. Existing studies have examined a variety of institutions, including the Commission’s expert groups, other scientific advisory bodies, and the use of expertise in the European Parliament. To date, this literature has largely focused on individual advisory institutions, especially those associated with the European Commission, given its importance as the institution with the right to initiate most policy proposals in the EU policymaking system. These studies have also not taken a broader view of the entire system of policy advice. This is a potentially significant gap given that expertise from multiple institutions is expected to influence the policy process in real-world political negotiations. In this article, we seek to fill this gap by mapping the EU institutional landscape for policy advice on climate change policy. Few areas feature policy advice more prominently than climate change, a highly technical and politically salient issue that requires widespread, fundamental changes in how society operates in areas including energy and agriculture. To examine this topic, we use the concept of policy advisory systems (PAS), which refers to the system of organizations, actors, and practices that policymakers draw on for policy-relevant advice. The PAS literature has examined a wide variety of advisory systems over the past three decades and explored a number of empirical dimensions of these systems including their governance, the role of ideas and power, and the impact of the resulting policy advice. But there has been limited attention to the climate change issue and jurisdictions outside of OECD countries (including supranational institutions such as the European Union). In this article, we seek to contribute to filling these empirical gaps by examining the structure and operation of a climate-related advisory system at the supranational level. We also seek to contribute theoretically to the existing literature by examining the extent to which the PAS concept captures dynamics in a multilevel, polycentric governance context. Drawing on documentary analysis and interviews with policymakers and stakeholders, we map the contours of the existing climate-related advisory system surrounding the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union. We also examine cross-cutting institutions of policy advice oriented toward multiple EU institutions (e.g., agencies such as the European Environment Agency and the newly formed European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change). We find a complex, evolving, and polycentric advisory system with complicated patterns of advice creation and use. We also show that the advisory system has shaped—and in turn been shaped by—the important changes to EU climate policy brought about as part of the European Green Deal. These findings highlight the need for further research on the EU policy advisory system, both in climate change policy and more broadly.