Rishi Sunak announces record climate aid commitment as G20 in India concludes

By News Desk

As a gathering of G20 leaders in India concluded on Sunday, 11 September, the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the UK’s biggest single financial contribution to helping the world’s most vulnerable people adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change.

The UK will contribute £1.62 billion ($2 billion) to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which was established by 194 countries following the Copenhagen Accord at COP15. The GCF is the largest global fund dedicated to supporting developing countries to reduce global emissions and helping communities adapt to the effects of climate change.

The pledge represents a 12.7% increase on the UK’s previous contribution to the GCF for the period of 2020-2023, which was itself a doubling of our initial funding to establish the fund in 2014.

At the G20 Summit Sunak called on leaders to work together ahead of the COP28 Summit this December to both reduce their countries’ own carbon emissions and support vulnerable economies to deal with the consequences of climate change.

Addressing G20 leaders, he said: “The UK is stepping up and delivering on our climate commitments, both by decarbonising our own economy and supporting the world’s most vulnerable to deal with the impact of climate change.

“This is the kind of leadership that the world rightly expects from G20 countries. And this government will continue to lead by example in making the UK, and the world, more prosperous and secure.”

The UK has led international efforts to help developing countries tackle climate change, including by pledging to spend £11.6 billion on international climate finance between 2021 and 2026.

The announcement marks a major contribution towards this commitment and follows Sunak’s announcement at COP27 that the UK would triple our funding for climate adaptation.

Since 2011, UK climate aid spending has helped over 95 million people cope with the effects of climate change and reduced or avoided over 68 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

This goes hand in hand with the UK’s domestic leadership transitioning to clean forms of energy. The UK has cut emissions faster than any other G7 country, with low carbon sources now accounting for more than half of our electricity.

It was noted that renewables generated a record 47.84% of UK electricity in the first three months of 2023 and output from wind, solar and hydro reached a record high last year. Last year, the biggest increase ever in the installation of offshore wind capacity was observed, with the UK home to the four largest working wind farms in the world.

Alongside this uplift in the UK’s contribution to the GCF, which is expected to again make the country one of the largest donors to the fund, the UK Government will continue to stress the importance of the GCF delivering results with even greater speed, demonstrating value for money in all of its activities. This includes asking the GCF to further improve its delivery for those countries most vulnerable to climate change, particularly Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States.