27 May 2025

This briefing is based on a webinar discussion with two members of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) team – Indra Thillainathan and Sandra Bogelein – given to the AFN Network+ community on the 7th April 2025. It is collated and written by Nina Pullman, food systems writer for AFN, and edited by Jez Fredenburgh, knowledge exchange fellow at AFN. You can also watch the webinar.

About the webinar topic

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) published its Seventh Carbon Budget advice (CB7) at the end of February 2025. We read the headlines and reactions at the time, but now the dust has settled and it’s time to dig deeper into the details:

What does the Seventh Carbon Budget really mean for farming, UK diets and the land based sectors? What are the challenges and opportunities in pursuing net zero? How did the CCC come to its conclusions and recommendations? What gaps in knowledge and data did it face and would the CCC like the research community and wider sector to help plug next time?

Two members of the CCC team – Indra Thillainathan and Sandra Bogelein – answer these questions and more.

As well as giving an overview of what CB7 would mean for the wider economy and agriculture and land sectors more specifically, they covered:

• Common questions asked to the CCC about agriculture
• More info about the CCC’s assessment that farmers could be better off under CB7
• Assumptions behind a shift away from average meat and dairy consumption & the most impactful levers to achieve this, plus health impacts
• Research and data gaps that the CCC faced when compiling the Carbon Budget advice

About the Seventh Carbon Budget

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) published its 7th Carbon Budget advice on 26th February, which updated the 6th Carbon Budget advice published in 2020. The advice is widely seen as the most authoritative assessment of the UK’s emissions across all sectors. It represents the independent statutory advice to the UK Government about what needs to happen to reach net zero by 2050.

About Indra Thillainathan

Indra Thillainathan is Team Leader of the CCC’s land, agriculture and nature team, covering both mitigation and adaptation. She oversaw the work on the Seventh Carbon Budget advice for the agriculture and land use sectors. She has a Masters degree in economics.

About Sandra Bogelein

Sandra Bogelein is a Government Social Researcher with a PhD in environmental psychology. At the CCC she is the lead analyst for people and Net Zero and covers work on the most impactful low-carbon household choices and public engagement on Net Zero and adaptation.