Democratic Innovations for Climate Transitions: The Role of Independent Expert Advisory Bodies

Independent climate advisory bodies, a key democratic innovation for climate transitions, are increasingly recognised as central institutions in national climate governance that are expected to improve credibility, ambition, long-term outlook and accountability of governmental response to climate change. Yet empirical evidence on their impact remains scarce, especially in the context of growing challenges to democracies of polarization and social backlash, disinformation and backsliding on climate change. This paper addresses this gap by considering the role of the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) in the political debate on climate change, including analysis of parliamentary discussions on net zero between March 2023 and March 2025 — a period marked by intense political contestation over fossil fuels, climate policy reversals, and the costs of decarbonisation. Building on a previous study for 2008-18 and drawing on a systematic content analysis of parliamentary interventions, we find the CCC continued to serve as a knowledge broker furnishing evidence for scrutiny, as a legitimiser whose analysis was used to justify government decisions, and as a policy entrepreneur whose recommendations were used to seek legislative change. Yet increased polarisation in climate politics turned the CCC into a politically contested body whose authority was challenged. The analysis reveals that CCC evidence was deployed across the political spectrum, but to markedly different ends — with government members predominantly using it to support fossil fuel investments and justify policy reversals, and opposition members using it to highlight implementation gaps and demand greater ambition. We find that the CCC’s influence is both substantial and structurally constrained: its analysis shapes the terms of parliamentary debate and is treated as authoritative by most participants, but the absence of binding force means governments can — and do — selectively interpret or misrepresent its findings. The article contributes to the growing literature on the policy impact of climate advisory bodies and offers empirical evidence on the mechanisms through which expert advice enters, and is contested within, democratic deliberation.