Dr. Thomas Muinzer:

Deputy Sherlock asked a very good question about the advisory council. There are some distinctions between the Irish advisory council and the Committee on Climate Change. I cast no aspersions on the Irish advisory council as I know that it includes a range of distinguished people and it does good and important work. So simply thinking about the legislation, in the original 2015 Act, section 11(3) states: "The advisory council shall be independent in the performance of its functions," which is very important. The Committee on Climate Change in the UK is independent as well. Section 9(18) semi nests the advisory council within the Environmental Protection Agency which, according to the legislation, becomes its sort of administrative support and perhaps they meet on the premises and so forth. That may have been a useful and prudent thing to so.

I shall talk about the law on the page and cast no aspersions on the committee, which I know does important work. The Committee on Climate Change, in the UK legislation, is sketched very robustly as an independent entity and is very much freestanding. When one considers the structure of the institution itself one will sees that it has its committee, which Mr. Church discussed, an adaptation subcommittee, and a very substantial secretariat that is very well resourced. The CCC stands very freely and is not quite subject to the same membership structure entirely in terms of how the competition is sketched out in the Irish Act, which is different. There are a few other differing elements as well. The CCC is very robustly freestanding in the UK and the Irish committee does important independent work but, from a vantage point, it sketches its functions now slightly less independently. One thing that we might learn from the CCC is how the legislation sketches it out in a very rooted, freestanding way, and that then has spoken to the theme of its popularity and how it is perceived. It is construed and considered as a robust freestanding, independent and reporting body. I cast no aspersions on the Irish committee, which is highly respected as well.

I shall give one brief example. Lord Deben wrote the foreword for my book on the Climate Change Act. Typically, I critiqued the Act and its institutions but I did not have a great deal that was critical to say because the CCC fulfils an important function, stands independently and has been a key piece of the machinery in the UK. One reason that Lord Deben kindly wrote the foreword is that he might have anticipated that I would have had a lot of critical commentary but I actually did not simply on the basis of how the CCC has performed to date and been viewed. There are some useful lessons there, I think.