The UK is roughly halving the climate aid it allocates to developing countries, when accounting changes and inflation are factored in, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief. On 19 March, the government announced that the UK would provide “around £6bn” of international “climate finance” over the next three years. This replaces a previous goal to provide £11.6bn across the 2021-2026 period to help nations in the global south cut their emissions and deal with climate threats. The new target was reported as a spending reduction of up to 14% compared to recent years, reflecting the UK’s wider plan to cut development aid and spend more on defence. In fact, Carbon Brief analysis reveals that the cut is far larger in real terms, with the new target worth around 30% less per year once inflation is taken into account. When also excluding the government’s use of widely criticised “creative accounting” to boost apparent spending, the new pledge is roughly 50% lower than the old one. The drop in climate finance means that – alongside other major donors – the UK is diverging from an international target, agreed in 2024 at COP29 in Baku, to ramp up climate aid to $300bn a year by 2035. ‘Innovative reforms’ Under the Paris Agreement, the UK and other developed countries committed to provide financial support for climate action in developing countries. This “climate finance” comes from the UK’s wider budget for “official development assistance”. Successive governments have pledged set amounts of climate finance over…
