Select committee: International Development Committee
Conclusion 59
Second Report - Global Britain in demand: UK climate action and international development around COP26
Published 26 Oct 2021
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
International Development Committee Climate change, development and COP26 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
At the Climate and Development Ministerial in March 2021, LDCs and SIDS offered practical solutions to improve access to climate finance.129 According to the IIED, these solutions included establishing a Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance headed by the UK and Fiji, harmonising and simplifying procedures to access directly ICF from multilateral funds and developing a clear and shared functional definition of climate finance that emphasises the importance of experimenting and taking risks to find effective 120 Bond SDG Group, Sightsavers (CDC0007), CARE International UK (CDC0029), Practical Action (CDC0040), Quakers in Britain (CDC0004), Tearfund (CDC0031) 121 Bond and Climate Action Network UK (CAN-UK) (CDC0045) 122 Bond and Climate Action Network UK (CAN-UK) (CDC0045) 123 Q53 [Cat Pettengell], Q54 [Marek Soanes], Q65 [Laurie Lee]. E3G (Third Generation Environmentalism) (CDC0027), Islamic Relief UK (CDC0041), Practical Action (CDC0040) 124 CARE International, Climate adaptation finance: Fact or fiction?, p.4, 21 January 2021. Research covers 112 projects from 2013–2017 in six countries - Ethiopia, Ghana, Nepal, the Philippines, Uganda and Vietnam (see: same source, p.11) 125 CARE International, Climate adaptation finance: Fact or fiction?, p.5, 21 January 2021 126 Roberts, J.T. et al, Rebooting a failed promise of climate finance, Nature Climate Change, Volume 11, p.2, 18 February 2021 127 Roberts, J.T. et al, Rebooting a failed promise of climate finance, Nature Climate Change, Volume 11, p.2, 18 February 2021 128 Q54 [Marek Soanes] 129 UK COP26, Climate & Development Ministerial Chair’s Summary, 1 April 2021 Global Britain in demand: UK climate action and international development around COP26 23 solutions to climate change.130 There has been little progress on access to climate finance as stakeholders disagree on the specifics of the Taskforce, according to a stocktake by civil society organisations in September 2021.131 UK’s response—definition of terms and
From: International Development Committee, Second Report - Global Britain in demand: UK climate action and international development around COP26 (HC 99), 26 October 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 January 2022 (deadline 26 December 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response to the Committee's report is mostly 'Partially agree', with 'Agree' on two recommendations, while declining the Committee's 31 January 2022 deadline for a locally-led adaptation pathway.
- On locally-led adaptation, it says it "agree[s] that locally led adaptation is critical" but is "not able to agree" to submit a pathway by 31 January 2022, citing the need to work with others, in particular Egypt as incoming COP27 Presidency. It "will report on progress by 31 March".
- On climate finance access, it agrees and says it is working to update the International Climate Finance Strategy and "aim to publish this by April 2022". It is not "proposing a simplification of the criteria for LDCs and SIDS per se", but a streamlined accreditation approach.
- On fossil fuel exemptions, it partially agrees, stating the exemptions are for "a small number of situations" and are "necessary to make this policy work in the real world". BII is developing a carbon budget and "will share this information with the Committee in due course".
- On a Climate and Development Minister, it partially agrees, stating there is "already strong ministerial oversight for this policy area", with Lord Goldsmith holding responsibility for climate and environment.