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This article provides an analysis of the origins and effects of UK climate governance. It is centrally concerned with the relationships between politics and climate institutions, both in how political conditions have shaped the emergence of climate governance, and in how the resulting institutions subsequently structure climate politics. The analysis brings out three key themes. First, a focus on the CCA can overlook the enduring importance of the parallel climate governance architecture provided by the European Union. Second, it is important to see UK climate governance within a wider political and institutional context, as these results of this context, especially tensions between ambition and instability, have influenced its evolution. Third, this design, and other aspects of the evolution of UK climate governance framework, have in turn had implications for the strengths and weaknesses of the framework and how it has met key governance challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credible commitment is central to regimes for climate mitigation policy. In the climate policy literature, it is widely argued that the solution to the credible commitment problem is legislation and delegation of goal-setting to a technical body insulated from political incentives, and the UK's Committee on Climate Change is in part modelled on this approach. However, drawing on the comparative politics literature, this paper argues that the focus on legislation and delegation as the solution to the credible commitment problem is too narrow. Seen within the context of comparative political institutions, it is a response that fits the political logic in countries with majoritarian electoral systems. By contrast, in countries with electoral systems based on proportional representation, while legislation plays a role, an important element in the creation of credible commitment comes in the form of negotiated long-term agreements between political parties. This contrast is explored through a comparison between the Climate Change Act and associated Committee on Climate Change in the UK on the one hand, and a series of Energy and Climate Agreements in Denmark over the 2010s. Both approaches appear to have worked to date. However, while negotiated long-term agreements typically have an internal process for managing conflicts that inevitably arise after the respective mechanisms have been put in place, disputes arising following legislation and delegation must be resolved within the more informal processes of intra-party politics. Mechanisms of accountability also differ between the two approaches. Key policy insights Legislation and delegation is widely seen as the key route to credible commitment for climate policy, but other routes are possible. Legislation and delegation is particularly suited to countries with majoritarian, or first-past-the-post electoral systems and resulting political dynamics. In countries with proportional representation, an alternative route to credible commitment is possible via formal agreement between political parties. Both routes can work well, but political agreements tend to have internal mechanisms for mediating conflicts that subsequently arise, whereas delegation relies on intra-party politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]