UK urged to support developing countries in funding climate action

Intervention from richer countries at this stage is vital because the cost of capital to poorer regions is frankly ridiculously high. Bond trades to borrow money are prohibitively larger in places like Kenya (12.6%) than say the US (1.6%), which shows why these nations are struggling to bounce back from the pandemic.

Talk of continuing to use fossil fuels is obviously vexing, but banking on the word of richer countries is proving difficult for those most impacted by the pandemic.

Way back in 2009, a pledge at the Copenhagen climate negotiations stated that wealthy countries would provide a joint sum of $100bn USD a year to help struggling nations cope with the climate crisis.

In practice, the loose parameters of what constitutes ‘climate finance’ led to nothing of the sort – with some reports suggesting citizens in the very poorest regions received just $1 USD a year each from the initiative.

In terms of figuring out exactly what has been invested, the details are very murky at the moment, but reports from the world’s 50 most vulnerable nations suggest the pledge isn’t even close to being met.

Speaking for @theSNP on support for NGOs and Churches in the developing world, I described the UK Govt's decision to cut the Overseas Development Aid budget in order to spend Billions increasing their stockpile of nuclear weapons as grotesque, utterly abhorrent and deeply immoral pic.twitter.com/x9nTP1nF79

— Brendan O'Hara (@BrendanOHaraMP) March 26, 2021

It’s also quite alarming that upcoming hosts of the Copa 26 – the UK – has recently cut overseas aid from 0.7% to 0.5% GDP a year. Government officials claim this will not directly affect its capacity to spend on climate solutions, but it is no doubt sending out mixed signals to those who’ve been failed in the past.

With this in mind, green campaigners and NGOs have written to the government ahead of this week’s ministerial meeting to call for the budget to be restored once again. Whether or not they’ll do so remains to be seen.

One thing is crystal clear though, with deadlines for our climate targets rapidly approaching, false promises simply aren’t going to cut it anymore. All eyes are now on the UK to orchestrate meaningful change on a global scale.