The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is an independent, statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008. Our purpose is to advise the UK and devolved governments on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.
Governance
- Corporate and Business Plan 2020 – 2023 – This document sets out the CCC’s strategic objectives, priorities and work programme.
- Framework Document – This document describes the broad framework within which the organisation operates and covers the role of both the CCC and Adaptation Committee (AC), their governance and accountability, management and financial responsibilities.
- Diversity and Inclusion – The strategy aims to build a positive, constructive equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) culture within the CCC and to ensure that EDI informs delivery of our statutory obligations.
- Audit and Risk Committee – This Committee supports the CCC and the Chief Executive (as Accounting Officer) in their respective responsibilities for control and governance, risk management and associated assurance.
- The Secretariat – The Secretariat provides analytical and corporate support to the Committee and is made up of around 35 staff members, led by the Chief Executive.
About
Members of the Climate Change Committee and the Adaptation Committee
Lord Deben
Chairman
Lord Deben was the UK’s longest-serving Secretary of State for the Environment (1993 to 1997). He has held several other high-level ministerial posts, including Secretary of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1989 to 1993).
- Lord Deben founded and chairs Sancroft, a corporate responsibility consultancy working with blue-chip companies around the world to help them improve their environmental, social and ethical impact
- he is Chairman of Valpak Limited
- he is Chairman of the Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice Association
Chris Stark
Chief Executive | @ChiefExecCCC
Chris Stark has been Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change since April 2018. His previous role was Director of Energy and Climate Change in the Scottish Government, leading the development of Scotland’s approach to emissions reduction and the accompanying energy system transition.
Chris has wide experience of economic policy-making, in the Scottish Government, HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Professor Keith Bell
Keith Bell is a co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has been at the University of Strathclyde since 2005, was appointed to the Scottish Power Chair in Smart Grids in 2013 and has been involved in energy system research in collaboration with many academic and industrial partners.
- A Chartered Engineer
- A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- A Member of the IET
Professor Piers Forster
Piers Forster is Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate and Professor of Physical Climate Change at the University of Leeds. Piers has played a significant role authoring Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and is a coordinating lead author role for the IPCC’s sixth assessment report.
Piers:
- established the forest protection and research charity, the United Bank of Carbon
- has a number of roles advising industry, including membership of the Rolls Royce Environment Advisory Board
Paul Johnson CBE
Paul Johnson is Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and a visiting professor at University College London (UCL).
He is widely published on the economics of public policy and is a columnist for the Times.
Paul has previously held roles as:
- Director of public spending at HM Treasury
- Chief Economist at the Department for Education (2000 to 2004)
- He was awarded a CBE for services to economics and social science in 2018.
Professor Corinne Le Quéré FRS
Corinne Le Quéré is Professor of Climate Change Science at the University of East Anglia (UEA), where she conducts research on the interactions between climate change and the carbon cycle.
Corinne is also:
- Director of the annual update of the global carbon budget by the Global Carbon Project (GCP)
- Chair of the French Haut Conseil pour le Climat
Professor Michael Davies
Michael Davies is Professor of Building Physics and Environment at the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE). At UCL his research interests relate to the complex relationship between the built environment and human well-being.
Michael is also:
- Director of the Complex Built Environment Systems Group at UCL
- A member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of ‘Healthy Polis’ – the International Consortium for Urban Environmental Health and Sustainability
- Professor Davies was previously the Director of the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, and a member of the London Climate Change Partnership Steering Group.
Adaptation Committee
Baroness Brown DBE FREng FRS
Chair of the Adaptation Committee
Baroness Brown of Cambridge (Professor Dame Julia King) is an engineer, with a career spanning senior engineering and leadership roles in industry and academia.
Baroness Brown also holds the following positions:
- Non-executive director of Ceres Power, Ørsted and Frontier IP
- Chair of the Carbon Trust
She was non-executive Director of the Green Investment Bank and led the King Review on decarbonising transport (2008). She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Royal Society, and was awarded DBE for services to higher education and technology. She is a crossbench Peer, a member of the House of Lords European Union Select Committee, and Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee.
Dr Ben Caldecott
Ben Caldecott is the founding Director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group and the inaugural Lombard Odier Associate Professor of Sustainable Finance at the University of Oxford.
Ben is also the founding Director and Principal Investigator of the UK Centre for Greening Finance & Investment (CGFI), established by UK Research and Innovation in 2021 as the national centre to accelerate the adoption and use of climate and environmental data and analytics by financial institutions internationally.
Professor Michael Davies
Michael Davies is Professor of Building Physics and Environment at the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE). At UCL his research interests relate to the complex relationship between the built environment and human well-being.
Michael is also:
- Director of the Complex Built Environment Systems Group at UCL
- A member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of ‘Healthy Polis’ – the International Consortium for Urban Environmental Health and Sustainability
- Professor Davies was previously the Director of the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, and a member of the London Climate Change Partnership Steering Group.
Professor Richard Dawson CEng FICE
Richard Dawson is Professor of Earth Systems Engineering and Director of Research in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. Over the last two decades his research has focused on the analysis and management of climatic risks to civil engineering systems, including the development of systems modelling of risks to cities, catchments and infrastructure networks.
In addition, Professor Dawson:
- holds an MEng degree in Civil Engineering and a PhD in flood risk management
- is a member of the National Infrastructure Commission’s Technical Expert Panel, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKRCIC)
- holds editorial roles for the scientific journals Climatic Change, Flood Risk Management and Infrastructure Asset Management
Previously, he served as:
- lead author for the chapter on Infrastructure in the 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) evidence report
- a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the IPCC’s 2018 Cities and Climate Change Conference
Professor Nathalie Seddon
Nathalie Seddon is Professor of Biodiversity and Founding Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford. Nathalie trained as an ecologist at Cambridge University and has over 25 years of research experience in a range of ecosystems across the globe. Nathalie attends the Mitigation Committee on discussions of nature and land.
As a University Research Fellow of the Royal Society, she developed broad research interests in the origins and maintenance of biodiversity and its relationship with global change. She holds a host of other positions, including Director of the Agile Initiative at the Oxford Martin School, co-Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, and Founding non-executive Director of the Oxford University Social Venture, Nature-based insetting.
Professor Swenja Surminski
Swenja Surminski is Chair of the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative, Managing Director Climate and Sustainability at Marsh McLennan and Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE).
Her work focuses on capacity building and knowledge transfer between science, policy and industry, building on her work in industry and as advisor to governments, private sector and civil society, including as Visiting Academic at the Bank of England.
