Essay by Eric Worrall

For 18 months, and British PM Rishi Sunak has failed to appoint a new Climate Change Committee head. Now the Chief Executive of the committee just resigned.

Sunak ‘dodging scrutiny’ by failing to appoint chair of Climate Change Committee

No successor has been named for Lord Deben – and now the independent watchdog’s chief executive has resigned

Toby Helm Political Editor
Sun 14 Jan 2024 18.00 AEDT

Rishi Sunak has been accused of trying to avoid scrutiny of his green policies after details surfaced about his government’s failure, over more than 18 months, to appoint a new chair of the independent climate change committee.

Senior environmentalists said they believed Sunak may be deliberately trying to avoid appointing a successor to Lord Deben – who first announced that he was stepping down in July 2022 – until after a general election, so he does not face criticism for his U-turns on green issues.

The Observer can reveal that peer and former Tory minister David Willetts, who had been seen as the clear favourite, was interviewed for the post last summer but has since had no further contact at all from the government about the job and no indication as to whether he is still being considered.

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A Whitehall source who knows several people who applied for the post said: “No one seems to know what is going on. There could be a number of reasons. Either Sunak does not want anyone in the job because he wants to avoid being criticised in the run-up to a general election or there is a blockage, a disagreement at high level over who it should be. Whatever it is, it is scandalous that a job like this has not been filled when climate change is supposed to be the most urgent question facing humanity.”

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The committee suffered another blow last week, when its chief executive, Chris Stark, announced he was standing down after six years. Stark is to join net zero advisory group the Carbon Trust as chief executive.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/14/sunak-dodging-scrutiny-by-failing-to-appoint-chair-of-climate-change-committee

This is strange even by the standards of British politics. We’re familiar with fake British Government committees, where people pretend to be part of a committee, so the government can pretend they are doing something about an issue. The famous British sitcom “Yes Minister” several times referenced fake committees. But an empty chair committee, on such a high profile issue, is next level weird.

The alleged motive seems obvious – the last thing Rishi Sunak needs heading into an election is a newly appointed climate committee chair who turns out to be a closet activist, or trades their position for a bunch of lucrative green directorships, who then uses their new appointment to criticise the government which appointed them.

There is an obvious solution – appoint a member of the climate skeptic Global Warming Policy Foundation as climate committee chair. Frenzied greens would direct so much energy and effort attacking the new committee chair, they might forget to criticise the government.