The Act Meaning of advisory body
50.The emissions reduction provisions in the Act impose duties on the Scottish Ministers which require them to establish annual emissions reductions targets in secondary legislation. Ministers will be required to seek expert, independent advice in advance of setting or modifying annual targets, adding greenhouse gases to the list in the Act, or making provision attributing a proportion of emissions of greenhouses gases from international aviation and international shipping to Scotland.
51.Subsection (1) of section 24 gives the Scottish Ministers the power by order to designate a body or person to undertake the advice functions in sections 2, 5, 7, 9 and 10 and the additional advice functions in sections 27 to 32 and 56. Thereafter the body or person will be referred to as the advisory body and will take on the role otherwise performed, by virtue of section 5(7), by the UKCCC. The order may designate the body established under section 25 (Scottish Committee on Climate Change) or such other public body as the Scottish Ministers consider appropriate.
52.Subsection (3) sets out the functions (the “advisory functions”) which the advisory body has.
53.Subsection (4) sets out examples of what an order under subsection (1) may provide for, such as the information that advice from the advisory body must contain. Subsection (5) defines the term “public body” for the purposes of subsection (1).