Institutionalising Climate Expertise: Evidence from European Climate Councils

This paper examines national climate councils as formalised advisory institutions within national and intergovernmental policy advisory systems, and their role in the facilitation of policies aimed at greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The study builds on a newly assembled cross-national dataset of European climate councils. We conceptualise council effectiveness along two continuous dimensions—mandate strength and operational scope—and derive a four-type typology that captures meaningful variation across cases. The quantitative component tests the incremental contributions of institutional features (such as legal status, secretariat size, reporting cycles, and membership composition) while controlling for council size and composition type. An evolutionary analysis groups councils into establishment waves to assess patterns of institutional learning over time and to identify whether later established councils tend to adopt stronger, better-resourced designs. The empirical findings show that legally anchored mandates, permanent and adequately staffed secretariats, and embedded reporting rhythms are positively associated with sustained, policy-relevant outputs and with indicators of uptake in policymaking. Councils with these features are more likely to function as ‘policy powerhouses’ or ‘authoritative expert bodies’, whereas under-resourced or procedurally unclear councils more often resemble ‘aspiring hubs’ or ‘niche advisory groups’. Our data also demonstrates that a formal mandate alone is not sufficient; without routine resourcing and clear procedural pathways for translating advice into ministerial or parliamentary review cycles, councils struggle to shape policy trajectories. Based on these results, the paper argues that institutional design - the combination of statutory mandate, dedicated secretariat capacity, and formalised reporting mechanisms - constitutes a tractable governance lever for enhancing the contribution of advisory bodies to accelerated emissions reductions. This contribution is particularly relevant for the panel ‘Climate Governance for Acceleration of Emissions Reduction’ by examining the organisational structures, practices, and political use of expert advice within climate governance. It situates climate councils within broader debates about expert knowledge and policy advisory systems, and the institutionalisation of climate action. By linking specific institutional features to observable outputs and plausible pathways to policy uptake, the paper offers both theoretical insights about the role of expert institutions in executive policymaking and empirically-based insights relevant for our understanding of institutions needed to accelerate emissions reductions.