The UK government has announced it has allocated £160m in finance for developing countries on the frontlines of climate crisis, less than a day after it diluted several of its key domestic decarbonisation policies.

In a press release issued yesterday, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the funding would be split across four global programmes, with the Mitigation Action Facility, a fund that supports developing countries to reduce emissions through initiatives focused on energy, transport and industrial sectors, taking the lion’s share of £100m.

A further £55m will go towards extending the life of the Clean Energy Innovation Facility from 2024 to 2029, a scheme which provides grants to accelerate the development of clean energy technologies in developing countries, it said.

Meanwhile, £5.7m is to be provided to the Nationally Determined Contribution Partnership, which supports developing countries by providing technical assistance to help them implement climate plans that are submitted to the UN under the Paris Agreement. And £750,000 is to be awarded to the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance, where it will be used as “seed funding” to leverage further private investment to reduce emissions and protect forests in Latin America and the Caribbean.  

The moves come just few weeks after the UK announced it planned to invest a further £1.62bn in the Green Climate Fund, a fund set up under UN climate change negotiations to deliver green finance to poorer nations. The government said it marked a 12.7 per cent increase on the UK’s previous contribution to the GCF, which is in the midst of raising fresh funds from donor counties as part of its “second replenishment”.

However, critics, including former Environment Minister Lord Zac Goldsmith, have warned that despite the new funding pledges the UK remains off track to meet its share of the £100bn a year of climate finance for developing countries.

Energy Minister Graham Stuart  announced the fresh climate finance pledges yesterday, during a thematic session of a UN Climate Ambition Summit hosted in New York by the United Nations Secretary-General on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The UK was not officially invited to the Summit, after the UN Secretary-General limited invites to nations prepared to announce significant new measures to accelerate progress towards delivering on their climate goals. France, Canada, Spain, Malawi, Pakistan, Chile, Brazil and the EU were all invited to participate, with the UK, US and China notable absentees.

The event came as the UK government faced searing criticism both domestically and internationally from world leaders, scientists, financiers, corporates, and campaigners for its plan – confirmed by the Prime Minister on Wednesday – to row back a number of key climate policies, including its planned phase out of new petrol and diesel internal combustion engine cars from 2030.

The UK has insisted it remains committed to delivering on its pledge to deliver £11.6bn international climate finance between 2021 and 2026, despite analysis from the Guardian which has argued it is now near impossible for the government to meet its stated targets, given it would require 83 per cent of the aid budget being allocated to climate finance through to 2026. Meanwhile, reports this morning from news agency Bloomberg have indicated the government is in the process of expanding its official definition of climate finance so as to be able to put a larger tranche of its existing overseas aid budget towards its commitments.

Announcing the new climate finance pledges this week, Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho said the UK was committed to supporting developing countries in their efforts to decarbonise, while claiming the UK was playing a minimal role in climate change.

“I am proud that the UK is a key ally of developing countries and is supporting them to reduce emissions and develop clean energy,” she said. “We in the UK only account for one per cent of global emissions, so we must work together with other countries around the world if we are to achieve our ambition of net zero. Today’s funding will help decarbonise key industrial sectors in the developing world, support new industries and create long-term jobs.”

News of the UK’s £160m climate finance commitment came on the same day that King Charles III hosted a joint event with French President Emmanuel Macron focused on mobilising more private finance for developing countries to adapt and tackle climate change.

The event, held at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, is a follow up event from the Climate Finance Mobilisation Forum hosted earlier by the King in Windsor.

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