The government has confirmed it has appointed former head of the CBI Adair Turner as the first chairman of the new Committee on Climate Change.

The remaining five to eight members of the committee are now expected to be appointed shortly as Defra seeks to get the committee up and running before Royal Assent for the Climate Change Bill is granted in late spring or early summer.

Defra said the "shadow" committee will begin work ahead of the bill being formally approved so that it can deliver the UK's first three five year carbon budgets on schedule this September.

The committee is also set top being work on assessing whether the government's target of cutting emission by 60 per cent by 2050 should be tightened to 80 per cent and whether emissions from international shipping and aviation should be included in the government's carbon budgets.

Environment secretary Hilary Benn welcomed the appointment of Lord Turner, claiming his "wide-ranging expertise" covering climate change, economics and business made him ideally suited to the role.

Lord Turner expressed his "delight" at having been appointed to the post and reiterated his confidence, outlined in a series of recent essays that climate change risks could be mitigated "at manageable economic cost provided we take early and effective action".

The appointment of the former CBI boss - who currently holds non-executive roles at a number of blue chip firms including, Standard Chartered, United Business Media, Siemens and Climate Change Capital - is likely to be broadly welcomed by business groups.